Mirror Mirage
by Sarah Rose Serena
Summary: If there was one thing she had learned from her ravaged childhood, it was that to be fair was not as beneficial as to be fierce. All that Snow wants to know is this: Is it her pardon or her prison?
1. Red as Blood

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**Mirror Mirage**

From _Sarah Rose Serena_

a _Once Upon a Time_ story

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><p><em>"R<span>ed as Bloo<span>d"_

"_I do not wish your future. I do not wish your past. One bright moment is all I ask."_

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Fairest of them all was she. Majestic like snow. Brave as barren hope. Risen from ashes of a scorned kingdom. Foretold to bleed when tragic light strikes the land. Never to find home again. All for the vain despair of an evil queen. Though no realm could hide how fair and kind such a princess came to be. Fallen for salvation. A pardon or a prison? For it shall be her destiny to sway under the sycamore trees until the righteous man accepts the truth beneath her tongued deceit. In the end, what be left cannot be known. Only one universal matter will uphold. Fairest of them all she ever be, a girl born below the glow.

Oh, how Snow White despised such a claim.

Long ago, before the death of the good queen, her mother would sit by the little girl's bedside and tell a sweet tale of how she had come to be, of how the queen had wished for such a precious gift, sitting at her windowsill one lonely winter afternoon, dreaming up a daughter with skin as white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony. A child would soon come to be that was kind and strong and knew the importance of beauty, both internal and external, but also knew the worth of more intangible things, such as loyalty and love. A child born of gloried king and queen would grow more lovely by the passing day, mind and soul, whom would prove so much more than the queen had dared to dream for. Or so her mother had insisted.

But all of that fluffy fairytale life had crumbled to ruin upon the slightest pressure.

However, prior to her untroubled life shattering before her youthful innocent eyes, Snow remembers a boy from a neighboring kingdom. A boy with a disarming smile and piercing blue eyes. A boy who refused to pull his punches, as commoners were apt to do, instead forcing her to resort to clever outsmarting or hard practiced skill if she wished to win at any game they came up with. This intractable boy was the first instance in her life that the princess came upon opposition.

An unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

That knowledge of how to strive, of where to find an untapped surplus of stubborn determination inside of her able to fuel whatever circumstance demanded of her, became ultimately an invaluable lesson for Snow White.

At the time, though, there was no way to know it. There was merely a young one and an infuriated sense of challenge.

"What are you doing out there, Snow?"

Throwing her head back with a breathy laugh, cheeks flushed rosy, she hooked an arm around the corded rope and tossed him a look over her shoulder. "Conquering the highest crest in the realm! I told you I wouldn't let your last victory stand."

"That's absurd!" the boy yelled in return, sidling along the jagged edge of the cliff.

Scoffing at the chiding anxiety in his voice, she twisted her grip upward, teetering like a weevil as she fearlessly traversed the abandoned bridge. Since such a decrepit bond was still the only connection from their side of the river up the most treacherous willow peak of Sídhe's mountain, going plank to rotted plank, hanging on to frayed ropes as she went was the only available passage. And she had to do this.

"Snow!" he called after her again, booted toes kicking loose rocks over the cliffside as he searched for a more stable route, his every cell urging him forward. "Come back!"

"Why?" Stretching her little body taut, she managed just barely to get her fingers into a makeshift handhold from an overhanging nest of branches in time to keep her up when the board beneath her feet splintered asunder. Rapids rushed hundreds of yards below. The drop was staggering. Which was why she steadfastly avoided looking down.

The boy hesitated, heart stopped at her close call, before he retorted, "Because you are going to get yourself killed."

Another breathy laugh escaped her then. "Don't be such a scaredy cat."

The mist coating the early morning air in such elevated terrain made her skin slippery with excess moisture. Combined with the moss crawling across the dilapidated bridge, she was left at a precarious disadvantage, despite her famed agility. But she was nearly to the end, almost in reach of the base of the willow peak, from which the girl was confident she could scale rock to the very top, and then there would be nothing Prince James could do to outshine her. She would be the verified best. Simply imagining the pride that would gleam in her father's eye when she returned, accomplishment in hand, brought a smile to vivid red lips, faint but rich.

Except the snap of damp branch resounded in her ears, failing under her weight, chasing said smile away in an instant. As she came down hard, her soles slid over the end of a bowed plank, legs tangling in roped rail, and the girl scrabbled in panic, desperate for some unlikely purchase.

Before a scream had time to burst from her lungs even, a clammy hand clasped hers, fingers wrapped harshly in their hurry around her wrist, yanking arm nearly from socket as her momentum cut short and she found herself hauled skyward. In a swinging blur of haphazard motion, they went spinning sideways. Rope tore apart at tattered seams and their backs smacked against stone hard enough to seize their lungs.

Eyes popping open in shock, after squeezing them shut in horror a millisecond earlier, Snow puffed out a happy breath at finding herself on the other side of the river, poised on a narrow ledge of the willow peak base. Adrenaline had her heart racing ridiculously and in extension blood pumping furiously through her veins, leaving her feeling lightheaded and exhilarated enough to fly, masking the brief flare of terror that had afflicted her from the moment of seemingly assured demise.

Failure rode her hard, pricking sharper than the thorns from the nest that protruded her fragile skin. How could a girl so intrepid be encased in such temperamental tissue?

Instead of immense gratitude, once she became aware of the arm cinching her waist, of the body pressed flush aside her own, she felt disappointment swell, irritation as well, and wasn't interested in deciphering whatever strange warm tingly sensation in her chest that mingled with those more unpleasant emotions.

Panting in a very unladylike fashion, Snow felt her cheeks flame and her mouth purse. "_James_. You weren't supposed to follow me."

The boy shot the indomitable princess an arch look through narrowed crystalline eyes, clutching her tighter in one hand and the sturdy vine they'd pinioned over on in the other when she began to wriggle away. In a quietly stormy voice that belied frazzled features, genuine and puzzled, he countered, "How could I not?"

That warm tingly sensation unfurled further inside of Snow White. It made her even more irritable than she had been.

"This doesn't count," she lamented tersely, gaze fixed on her feet as she inched them experimentally across the ledge, testing the support. "I could have made it."

Ignoring her protest, he reeled her back into him and corralled the vine between them before she could try to stray from relative safety. "Look what you've gotten us into now. The bridge broke. What's your plan to get back to the other side?"

"Who said I planned on going backward?" she retorted, chin upturning. As his gaze skated up the towering heights of the willow peak after her own, a daring smirk flickered across her mouth. "We've come this far. Might as well keep going."

"Brilliant," he muttered below his breath, bad idea after bad idea of hers embroiling him beyond evasion. He watched her deceptively delicate hands wander in examination over the rugged surface of stone, coming off with wads of moss. He started to try to talk her out of it, searching for better options, only to be distracted in the next heartbeat by a trickle of blood that smeared the cuff of his white shirt, warm and sticky, and it belonged to the princess. "Snow."

"Yes, I know," she replied, dismissive and preoccupied, as he caught her injured wrist between his hands and stroked a thumb over the seeping wound.

Rueful exasperation spread, noticing all the cuts marring her fingers and forearms, and he suddenly needed to know, "Why is this so important to you?"

"You aren't the only one that has to prove yourself," she told him, answering with one of her reluctant sighs after a moment of silent deliberation. "For me . . . it's not so easy."

With a brief but telling squeeze, he released her, drawing emerald eyes up to his own. "I don't believe you." A breathless beat of tension arced like energy between the children at his layered words, his steady stare burning into her, stripping down her armor. But if he had intended to pursue it, her vulnerable discomfort dissuaded him, melding into a ruffled demeanor that looked more natural on the unruly princess. Turning to the stone, he roughened his tone and urged lightly, "Well, then. Let's get to it."

If there was anything worthwhile her early childhood taught Snow White, it was that to be fair was not as beneficial as to be fierce.

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><p><em>TBC<em>


	2. Mad World

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_"Mad World"_

_"Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is called insanity. For people bound in time, doing the same thing over and over again and not knowing what to expect is called living a loop. This is their prison and they just don't know it."_

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Morning light streamed in golden whorls through flowy floral drapes. Aves crooned varyingly chipper cadences through an open window. Many perched as they often would in an ancient lilac tree sprawling high outside with bright splashes of color. By this time on a warm Saturday, Mary Margaret would normally be at school for her tutor sessions.

Not today.

For today, she was due to gather with the rest of her community in the town square to celebrate All Saints. Everyone would bring a little something. An offering. And what they as a people amassed would create a wonderful spread as they had every year before. It was somewhat of a Storybrooke tradition.

So, after sleeping in, she allowed herself a soothing pot of tea and a seat in such warm sunshine on her fire escape. From inside, she could hear her new roommate rummaging around the load of boxes that held her every belonging in this world. It was very strange, in a welcome way, to have someone living so close after so much isolation. She couldn't let herself get used to it. It wouldn't do to grow too complacent with her new company. Nothing ever lasted for Mary Margaret. Her life had been one of deep personal loneliness for as far back as she could remember. She didn't want to get her hopes up. Not again.

After all, the incident with her comatose patient was bad enough. She still couldn't quite believe she'd gotten so swept up in it all. Henry and his fantastical stories about her long lost prince and true love sounded so . . . wonderful.

Should a grown woman be embarrassed by such childish idealistic hopes?

Mary Margaret couldn't be. Not since what came out of the experience was a man who had gotten his life back. She _rescued_ someone. Truly. And even if it wasn't meant to be, with her misguided emotion and unwarranted wishes, if he wasn't her Prince Charming, it was a good thing she had done. She had reunited him with his wife.

Should a gracious woman not be glad about that?

Instead, a sharp pang hit her heart whenever she thought of the man, a man supposed to be a stranger to her. He didn't feel like a stranger. He felt like . . . _hers_. Never before had she cause to feel this blooming sense of possessiveness. And now, she still didn't. Regardless, it was there, growing inside of her, and it was taking a lot of strict chastising of herself to bury it.

_Come back to me. Please. Come back to me._

This was nonsense. Indulging the little boy had twisted her head all up. Now she could not stop thinking of things she had no right to think of. No right to hope for. She knew how things worked in the real world. Yet she had always had faith. That this wasn't all there was to life. That, though a part of her felt something profound was missing, it would eventually find its way back to her, whatever it may be, as the songbirds in her lilac tree always had. Faith that one day she would be happy.

_You promised._

But these all-consuming daydreams she had suffered since David Nolan awakened was going far beyond her quiet faith in better things to come. This was highly inappropriate, this burgeoning attachment, and it had to stop. Immediately.

Later in the day, as she set her basket of fruits and pastries onto a corner of the only picnic table which still had room, Mary had just about convinced herself of it.

"Nice cardigan."

"Oh!" she squeaked, startled by the gravelly drawl behind her, knocking her basket to the grass, sending baked goods scattering. Lurching to her knees in a vain attempt to save the bundle, she glanced up under a fringe of ebony hair to meet the pierce of crystalline blue eyes gazing down at her, a sparkle of humor alighting them. "You again."

"Me again," he said, pulling his hands from his pockets, a rueful tightening to his face, crouching down in front of her to help pick up the spilt mess. "Sorry I scared you."

Focusing on the ground, she felt her cheeks flush warm, a blush crawling up her neck, and couldn't keep from tensing when his hand brushed hers. "You are forgiven. If I'm that easy to frighten, I obviously deserve it."

A throaty chuckle vibrated in his chest, luring her eyes up before she could resist the sudden pull. "Maybe you just feel jumpy." And another laugh followed.

One dark eyebrow winged. "Glad I could be of amusement."

"Have you eaten yet?" he wondered. "Or have I done something to offend you?"

"What?" Drawing away in surprise, Mary forced her nerves to settle as best she could. "No. You haven't done anything. I'm sorry. My wit isn't usually so sharp."

He didn't bother to stifle the crooked grin that inspired. "So it _is_ me."

"I didn't say that," she countered softly, a reluctant smile curving her lips.

Shaking his head, David dropped a ripe peach into her basket and reached for the last blueberry muffin in the grass just as Mary did, getting their fingers tangled. The electric spark of static that jolted at the contact stilled them both. Breath hitched in her throat, she wet her lips and started to withdraw, only to have his fingers flex, holding on when her touch would have slipped away. Anxious and confused, she cast emerald eyes to his, hidden beneath the veil of thick ebony lashes, and watched an almost raw flash of turmoil etch into his rugged features.

Sounding soft and breathless, she asked, "Are you alright?"

"_Is_ it me?" he countered in a low roughened voice, his words rearranged, a question both desperate and tormented.

Mary didn't know how to react to such unexpected intensity. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Mr. Nolan." Pulling her hand free of his grasp, she snatched her basket and rose quickly. Behind her, she felt him follow closely.

"Don't call me that."

"Because it's too formal?" she rejoined, distracted by herself, and found that her hands were trembling as she dumped the tainted pastries into a waste bin.

At her shoulder, he admitted, "Because it doesn't sound right. Not from you."

Something in his tone made it impossible for her not to turn around at the light touch on her shoulder. There was something so _intimate_ there in his eyes. Pained. Bewildered. He had her cornered under an old oak tree and that terrified woman inside of her was urging her to escape. That terrified terribly wounded woman buried not so deep down.

"Tell me what we were."

The firm demand left her taken aback. Whatever she had anticipated, this was not it. "Excuse me?"

"_Please_." Persistent, he planted a palm to the bark by her ear and slanted over her. "This is driving me crazy. I have to know." Though his voice lowered in volume, it did not lose any of its strength. "What was going on? Between us? Before my accident?"

Shocked, she exclaimed in a whisper, "You think we were having an affair?"

David swallowed thickly. Calloused fingertips bit into bark. "What else would it be?"

"I can't imagine what gave you that idea." Why on Earth couldn't she breathe?

"Can't you?" he challenged, canting his head closer, a mixture of curious and knowing.

Mary wasn't accustomed to people encroaching her personal space. It unnerved her. That it was _him_ so near only made the sensation worse. "Nothing. We had never met."

"You're lying." The accusation held no venom. Only conviction. "You have to be."

Turning her gaze away from the sear of his stare, she scanned the lazy mingling of familiar people all around them and realized with an unsettling quaver that she had never felt more apart from them all than this very moment. "Why do you say that?"

"'Cause I've seen the way you look at me." He wasn't smug or cocky or flirty. Just tired. "And because you look pained every time Catherine comes around."

"What? No, I—"

David pushed on, veering sideways when she tried to round him to regain her footing and bringing their bodies even closer, so close she could feel the heat his skin radiated, smell the heady musk of evergreen and cinnamon, hear his heart pound. "Because I can't get you out of my head. Or my dreams. And if there was nothing going on between us before I lost my memory, then that just isn't natural and I should be worried."

"All valid points," she replied after a deafening stretch of quiet hesitation, dulcet voice measured carefully, cautiously, most of all guardedly. "Honestly, though, you and I never met before the hospital." As a flicker of heavy disappointment outweighed the denial in his bright eyes, she felt another of those debilitating pangs. "Maybe this is some residual effect of the coma, of waking and the whole trauma of the creek, because I . . . because it was my reading that woke you." If it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than him, she couldn't acknowledge it. "Mine was the first voice you heard. The first face you saw when you opened your eyes in that riverbed. That's probably what is confusing things in your mind."

He didn't look convinced. Only more frustrated. "That's not it."

"How do you know?" she challenged, clinging to her resolve as his proximity began to overwhelm her senses. But his obvious upset nearly broke her composure. It affected her so much so that she failed to notice reaching for him until she felt her fingers curve softly over his raised forearm of a barricade. In a gentle voice she would use with a student after a hard blow, she murmured, "I'm sorry."

The troubled man dismissed her comfort with a rough shake of his clouded head, mistaking her empathy for pity. "What for?"

"All of it."

"Not your fault." With a hint of self-deprecating pain, he lifted a corner of his mouth. "All you did was save my life."

Whenever he looked at her, it was as if he peered into her very soul. No sensation had or would ever come close to matching this one. She couldn't breathe under that stare. Definitely couldn't think. Unaware, both began leaning towards one another at once, powerless against a gravitational pull, against magnetism, until a high smoky voice called across the sunny quad, disrupting their shared hypnotic state.

"Miss Blanchard! Over here!"

Blinking free of her stupor, Mary sucked in a sharp breath and wrenched herself away from the dangerous man. Shielding her eyes with a hand above her brow, she followed the voice to find a seemingly oblivious Emma Swan waving her over from the other side of the old restored gazebo. To her conflicted companion, she said, "I should go."

"Yeah," he murmured under his breath, "I guess you should." Before she got more than a few steps, however, his leveled voice made her hesitate. "I didn't mean to upset you."

Glancing back, she felt all her snarled tension melt, and smiled warmly. "You didn't."

The way he looked at her then, oh, it made her knees weak with want.

_Married_, a protective part of her whispered, digging in the thorns. _He's not yours_.

"Goodbye, Mary."

"Goodbye, David."

And as she watched him walk away, his head hung low and his shoulders lined tight, Mary Margaret felt a swell of guilt fill her insides. She had never in her life been more dishonest than she had with him just moments ago. But the logical side of her brain knew it was for the best. Regardless of what her constricting chest might try to argue.

For the rest of the day, and half the sleepless night, all she could think about was him and this peculiar attraction, so deep-seated a connection, yet inevitably insubstantial. Lying in the dark, nothing but nocturnal aves to sift through the crushing silence, she had to wonder one thing.

_If we are the summation of our experiences, who are we without our memory?_

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><p><em>TBC<em>


	3. Big Bad Wolf

**.**

_"Big Bad Wolf"_

_"Hey there, little red riding hood. You sure are looking good. You're everything a big bad wolf could want, _leered the ravening beast._"_

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When at last she arrived at the shabby inn crested on outskirts of the forest, a storm was swiftly descending in her wake, and all Snow White wanted was a hot bath and a bed. She kept the hood of her sweeping velvet cloak up to shroud her features on the chance of being recognized, so the innkeeper that welcomed her past the threshold greeted the girl with genial warmth, if not a bit preoccupied. As she was ushered in from the rain, her ears caught disturbed murmuring from the adjacent dining hall. More of the same talk that had lured her into this kingdom to begin with.

"Has there been another abduction?" she queried casually as the old woman rounded her front desk to sign the new guest in.

Granny offered a frazzled flutter of gnarled hands, peering down the scope of glasses that perched low on her nose. "Just yesterday the Hanson girl went missing. Father found her riding hood discarded on the same path as the others." And on assumption, she lifted an arm to pat the cloaked girl's poised hands atop the desk. "But don't you fret about that. My guests are perfectly safe within these walls."

"You know," she ventured, her tone still casually modulated, "I heard about a famous tenderloin platter here in your tavern that was supposed to be to die for all the way from five provinces over."

"Ah, yes." Demeanor brightening from the somber mood, Granny led her through the common area into the dining hall and seated her at a small table in a candlelit corner. "That would be thanks to Miss Mia. Our resident cook is a whiz with the meats."

"And is she in this evening?"

"Yes, of course. The poor thing refuses to go home. Says she needs to keep herself busy while the men folk are doing their searching. I can't say as I disagree."

Fingers laced, Snow propped her hands on the table before her. "May I see her?"

The first tendril of suspicion stirred in the old woman at that, but she merely brushed it aside as silliness. The girl watched this happen through hooded lashes, looking up from the shadowed halo of her hood, and let her rigid posture relax with relief. "I'll just go see if she can be spared from the kitchen."

Once she was on her own, she cast her eyes across her distant company, absorbed all the little details of her atmosphere, watching the grungy villagers fill themselves with ale and hot meals whilst gossiping about the tragedy that has stricken their simple world. These people were hard worked and content with life. Settled was the word that came to her mind as she observed them all and their interactions deep familiarity woven through the sprawling group the likes of which she couldn't have cut through.

For just a moment, a brief indulgence, Snow accepted the bittersweet ache that chose to bloom inside her at the sight. Even with the grim slant smothering hearty laughter, there was something about places like this that made her soften. And then they made her go hard and cold again at the reminder of what was so far out of her reach right now. There was no way to grow roots when one could not afford to cease movement. Ever.

It was exhausting living as an outlaw. And lonely.

Those were the cards she'd been dealt, though, and wishing upon shooting stars would not change that. Only the girl herself had the power to do so. And she sure was striving for it. But these things took time.

Meanwhile, detours like her trip to this inn were costly to her ultimate goal. Such was the burden of duty bred into a young once royal since birth. Loyalty was one of few values Snow had refused to sacrifice. Love, on the other hand, had not been so fortunate.

"I was told you wished to speak with me?" came a ragged voice to the left. "Would the weary traveler enjoy a fresh bowl of stew and warm loaf?"

After casting a precautionary glance around the room, ensuring no one had their eyes pointed this direction, Snow lifted her hands and swept the brim of her hood to her nape. Looking up, shuttered emerald eyes were met with bloodshot hazels, which widened in a stark jolt of recognition. "Hello, Miss Mia."

"My Lord," the cook breathed, covering her mouth with a dainty but calloused hand as she sunk into the free seat opposite the younger one. "Is it truly you, mistress?"

"Yes," she replied, and reached out to clasp the other woman by the arm as she smiled. "I'm sorry it took me so long to arrive. I haven't been in a position to be appraised of news with any kind of prompt. As you well know."

"I never expected you to come."

Snow frowned, red lips pursed. "How could I not?" As she took in her old guardian, she noted how harsh the years had been to her since they had last parted.

Leaning forward, forearms crossed atop the table edge, a candlewick flame flickering between them, making shadows dance across every scrubbed surface, "Is it safe for you?"

"To be here? No less safe than anywhere else for me these days. That's unimportant. Tell me. How long as Talia been gone?"

Miss Mia slung a furtive look over her shoulder at the other patrons. Reaching to take the young one by the hand, she rose to her feet and guided her away. It was hardly more than reflex for the girl to flip her hood back into place. But when the older woman led her into a private living quarters in the rear of the inn, she said, "It's alright. I give my word."

Within the quarters, Granny sat by a burning hearth with her knitting needle and yarn while a raven-haired teenager in red lounged across a flowery settee with a storybook.

"Ladies," her once guardian announced, urging Snow closer, "I have brought the one we spoke of. She has come."

Nerves jangling in alarm, Snow did as her old friend wanted and revealed herself with a sharp exhale to the old woman and the adolescent. Stepping into the pool of firelight, she unbound her cloak, hooked it over the back of a rocking chair, and folded her arms. "Are the rumors on target? Is it really a wolf taking the children?"

"Of course it is." Lifting a silver brow, Granny set her knitting aside. "The first child to be taken was the Carson girl. She had been traveling down a forest path with her brother when she was stolen from us. The boy saw it all."

"And since then?" Snow questioned. "How many more have been taken?"

"Seven total," was the teenager's quiet reply, her cool eyes roving interestedly over the uncomfortable outlaw. With a glance at the cook, she added, "Including our Talia."

"The village this place lays on the outskirts of is part of a good kingdom. Why haven't the authorities handled this?"

As the teen snorted her disdain, her grandmother shot her an admonishing look and told Snow, "They have been informed. But we are a very small community and they have their hands full."

Snow had been afraid of hearing that. If the palace paladins were too busy to make it out here in time to find the abducted children while they were still alive, there wasn't a chance she could just turn her back on this. Especially not since the woman that had been like a second mother to her had had her own daughter ripped away.

"Well," she said, drawing in a resolute breath as she folded her arms, "I guess I'll have to bring them home myself."

Miss Mia went lax with relief. As she collapsed into a plush armchair by the hearth, wringing her hands, she asked, "How are you going to do that? Hunters from the village have had no luck trying to track the beast."

"I have come across these types before. Werewolves are nasty critters but are ruled by old instincts. I'm willing to bet this one is enough like its brethren in how it operates."

"Meaning what?" the teenager prodded, sitting with her knees bent towards her chest as an eerie sort of fascination filled her rawboned features.

Snow answered with a simple shrug of graceful shoulders. "It is attracted to youth. And bold colors. If I can entice it, I can get it to lead me back to its den."

Scoffing her disapproval, Granny said, "That's insanity."

"Do you have a better idea?" she countered, brow rising high, head canting.

Ruby swung to her feet before the old woman could pose another remark. "We don't. And I think it's an excellent idea. In fact, I volunteer."

That earned the teenager a trio of incredulous looks. But the outlaw first found words. "Pardon me?"

"Oh, you heard me." The saucy look the teenager gave her triggered a ripple of déjà vu in Snow's chest. She reminded the outlaw of herself. "This plan of yours is contingent on good bait. Is it not?"

Mouth pursed in reluctant consideration, Snow acquiesced, "It is."

The teenager flung her arms out wide. "That's definitely me."

"Absolutely not!" Granny interceded, rocketing to her feet. "I will not stand for it."

"Your grandmother is right." But she had to admit, if only to herself, it would sure make things easier. "It's far too dangerous."

Hand propped on cocked hip, Ruby challenged, "Isn't the fallen princess supposed to be some expert markswoman? That's what they all say." And before the older girl could dispute, she finished wryly, "What danger am I truly in with the infamous Snow White watching my back?"

"I don't care who is with you," the old woman cut into their staring contest, "I am not letting my only grandchild go skipping through the forest trying to get herself attacked by a wild beast."

"Gran," she implored, dropping all her confidence as she turned to her grandmother. "This is Talia we are talking about. We have watched that troublesome little brat sprout from a tiny bean. Would you not do anything in your power so she comes home whole?"

From beside the seated Miss Mia, Snow murmured, "Oh, low blow, kid."

"Yes," the old woman drawled, attention never straying from the teenager, "Very low."

"Excellent," was what Ruby had to say for herself as she witnessed the resignation fill her weary grandmother. Turning to Snow, she said, "I will make sure my red riding hood is ready to wear. How soon can we do this?"

As the old woman sunk back into her rocking chair, fingers rubbing at her temple, Snow drew in a deep breath and buried the dread simmering inside. When her hand landed gently on a tense shoulder of the worried mother, she was granted a grateful smile and a gaze of teary eyes as her hand was squeezed tightly. "If you are certain, I intend to go out as soon as the storm breaks."

"That won't be tonight," Miss Mia informed her, rising to her feet without releasing her grasp on the outlaw's hand. "In the meantime, let me show you to your room. You will need your rest." And from over one shoulder as she pulled Snow away, "That goes for you as well, my sweet Ruby."

After bidding goodnight to her old friend, Snow found herself all alone again in a cozy bedchamber upstairs. Since she had no clue when next she would be able to have access to a place such as this, she pushed aside stress and fret of the day to come, drew herself a nice hot bath to soak in, just as she'd been dreaming of doing for the last four fortnights.

In the morning, she corralled her long ebony locks away from her face with a topknot, dressed in leggings and riding boots, polished the measly artillery in her hulking satchel, and made sure to shroud herself in her cloak before she left the chamber. Good fortune had given her a bright dawn with crisp air and rainbows in the azure sky. She spent most of her prep time at the window.

On her way down, however, a murmur of activity in the common area sent a flood of both apprehension and anticipation through Snow. Frozen still in the narrow stairwell, her breath hitched in her throat and her heart beat urgently against her breastbone when she focused on the din of voices, picking out the horribly familiar cadence.

Half of her wanted to rush forward, stupidly, while the other half wanted no more than to swivel on her heel and race back upstairs to hide. Neither was a very wise option. She had things to do. Places to be. A werewolf to find. She couldn't do that trapped here.

Tugging nervously at her hood, Snow followed through her tread and emerged from the stairwell, making swift motions towards the kitchen, where she prayed she would find Miss Mia. But the quick swish of her cloak darting around a corner caught attention.

"Wait a moment," that familiar cadence called out to her, his footfalls on her tail.

_Damn_, she thought, thanking small mercies that her cloak still concealed her identity. At the swinging entry to the kitchen, she hesitated, feeling him come upon her. _What in the realm is he doing here?_

From behind her, near enough to touch, she heard him query, "Are you local?"

Shoulders rigid, she pinched the brim of her hood between two fingers and shook her head from side to side negatively, hoping that would be the end, knowing it wouldn't be. Still, she attempted to flee, pushing the entry inward, sweeping herself inside. There was no one in sight. No Mia. No Granny. No Ruby. She just couldn't catch a break.

"Halt there," he called again, his tone laced with suspicion.

Breathless, she twirled around as the entry began to push open, slammed her palms to the carved wood, and winced in sympathy as she both heard and felt it crash into his nose with an outward pop of a swing. As he grunted in pain and surprise, she spun into a run, headed for the opposite entry into the dining hall.

Mere hairsbreadth from her escape route, her feet were swept out from under her, leaving the outlaw to careen into a cluttered counter, scattering pots and pans. Curling in on herself, dropped to her knees, she maneuvered velvet spools of her cloak to drape protectively around her as one hand slipped surreptitiously into her boot.

Voice rough and irritable, he growled, "On your feet." But before she could acquiesce, he had her by the arm and hauled her up, a motion so jagged as he spun her around to face him, it flipped back her hood. Another dose of surprise flickered over his features as they stilled together, his fingers a bruising vice around her bicep, her shiny dagger leveled against his Adam's apple.

After the initial stunned moment, they exhaled in unison and shared a grin.

Cheeks flushed, emerald eyes alight, she lilted, "Charming."

Expression going dreamy, he responded, "Snow."

"Sorry about your face."

"It's alright," he said, speaking over his shoulder to the knights that had followed him, "As you were." The pair waited, held still there together in such a compromising position, while his men reluctantly shuffled out. "Are you going to put the blade away?"

"That depends." Her grin softened into a small secretive smile. "Are you going to call your men back? Have me commanded to custody?"

Prince James gave her a teasingly bewildered look. "Why would I do a thing like that?"

"I can think of a few reasons," she drawled, lowering her dagger and slipping her arm free of his slackened grasp. "Only one of which being your nose looks broken."

"Oh, this?" he quipped, readjusting the bloody bridge with an exaggerated grimace. "Nah. Just smarting a bit."

"Honestly," she said in a new tone, "I am sorry for it. But I couldn't be sure how you would react to seeing me here." A veil of mockery fell over her again. "Now I know you are feeling particularly chivalrous, I'll bid farewell."

"Not so fast," he countered, catching her arm as she tried to sidestep the prince. "What are you up to today, Snow?"

The outlaw matched his piercing look with an innocent one of her own. "I haven't the faintest idea of what you refer." That raised his brow, widened his grin, canted his head. She rolled her eyes. "Truthfully, Charming. All I have done is seek haven at an isolated lodging where I assumed I would be safe for a night or so." Flicking a wry gaze over him, she added, "Obviously my assumptions need improvement."

Casting his focus towards a bright window, fingers still encircling her limb, he began, "I've been out of sorts lately."

"I know what you mean."

At the sudden rejoinder, striking cerulean eyes returned to her face. "Be that as it may, I am nowhere near distracted enough to miss how clearly you are lying to me."

Wired under his studying stare, Snow felt an odd pang of longing star inside her chest. Ignoring it was . . . difficult. "Fine. You are right."

"I am well aware," he drawled dryly, fingers slipping unconsciously down the curve of strong arm to delicate wrist, callous on porcelain, skin to skin. When he continued, it was with a thicker voice. "Now tell me, Snow, what are you doing in my kingdom?"

Wetting her lips, she glanced away. "The stolen children, Charming. One of them belongs to a woman who served my palace. When the queen first began her awful reign, Mia migrated with her daughter into your father's. I helped them procure passage."

From the conflicted etch of his rugged features, she knew he wanted to say something personal about the issue, but he curbed his impulse. "That's what has brought me here. We are investigating the disappearances. If you know more—"

"I would tell you." She lifted her chin, met his piercing gaze evenly, while her mind spun on the many reasons why she wasn't doing just that in this golden moment for it. This was her chance to transfer the responsibility, her chance to move on as she should, but she already had a plan formulated, and she felt confident of this one. She didn't want to risk ruining it simply since this intractable royal had somehow gotten under her skin. "However, I am only here to comfort Mia in her loss."

Trust. That had always been her downfall. Now it would likely be her aversion to it.

Sighing softly, Prince James slipped his grasp from her wrist into the furl of her palm, bringing her knuckles up to his mouth for a kiss that should have been perfunctory where it was lingering. Purest of blue eyes never straying from her own, he dismissed, "My lady."

Exactly as she had feared from first being tackled by the prince, it took all the control she possessed, every single stubborn determined shred of it, for Snow to make herself pull her hand from his touch and saunter backwards, knocking the entry open with her back, twirling to make haste.

In the dining hall, she found Ruby perched on the edge of a tabletop, legs swinging.

"There you are." When she reached the teenager, she swept a half-eaten porridge dish from her clutches and asked in an undertone, "Are you still set on assisting me?"

Brow arched, expression flat, Ruby retorted, "What do you think?"

"Then get yourself together. We must go now."

Sliding off her perch, Ruby said, "Perfect. We will be gone before Granny returns from her morning laundry task and back before she has time to worry. Hopefully."

As she claimed her satchel from where she'd dropped it in the foyer, Snow hurried the teenager out the side entry, watching her tie on a vivid crimson riding cloak. She couldn't help but think how appropriate it was for catching the eye of a werewolf. Inside the stable full of hosted horses, she was brought to a sleek young mare with a coarse bay coat, already harnessed. Scooping up a handful of feed as she passed a bucket, she stroked her muzzle and coaxed the animal into agreement.

"This is the steadiest steed we have," her rebellious companion informed the outlaw. "Should we take just this one?"

Snow only nodded. Her fingers played along the mare in introduction. A comforting sort of calm had fallen over her in preparation of the day to come. She would not fail Mia. "Let's make quick progress, shall we?" After saddling up, she offered a hand and hauled the younger girl up behind her on the perch. "Show me."

"Take the eastern road." Ruby wrapped her arms around the other's waist. "You'll find the pathway the kiddies had taken around the bend."

And rightly she did. Not even a ten minute trot was required before she tugged rein and veered the mare off the road onto a beaten forest path. A few more minutes of travel along the winding pathway and the teenager was getting restless.

"Shouldn't we separate?"

"Not yet." With another tug of rein and small nudge of her heel into the mare's flank, Snow sped their pace. "I want to be further into the depth." For she needed a head start. Doubtless the prince's investigation would soon lead him this way. And she definitely did not need a caravan of heavy-footed men scouring the trees while she weaved a snare. "How far did any of the children make it?"

"Another mile or so."

Snow drew in a decisive breath. "We'll break off halfway."

"So, you just want me to—"

Bringing a delicate finger to rich red lips, she silenced the girl. "Never know who may be eavesdropping. The forest has all sorts of ears."

Arms tightening convulsively around the outlaw's waist, Ruby murmured, "I meant to believe the fair Snow White has an affinity for the woodland creatures."

"Where did you hear such a thing?" she wondered, chuckling softly. She had no idea she was so talked about around the realm. From what little time she had spent so far with this one juvenile peasant had filled her with all kinds of rumors on herself.

Ruby masked a look of disappointment. "Is it untrue?"

Snow couldn't help but smile slyly. "Well, I didn't say _that_."

"Ooh, mysterious. You'll have to tell me your stories someday."

"Sweetheart, after this, it's more likely you will never see me again." The irksome quiet which followed such an offhanded comment left Snow with a familiar sense of remorse. For ruining the easy camaraderie. For reminding herself the reality of her circumstance. "Here should be good."

The next beat, she urged the mare to a halt, allowing Ruby to dismount, while patting her crest to soothe the gentle beast as she stamped her hooves with eerie impatience.

"Here I go." Pulling her red hood over her crown, the teenager stepped away, a look of brave trepidation coloring her rawboned features as she gazed down the forest path.

In her smoothest voice, Snow assured her, "I will be with you for every step."

"Even though I won't see you," Ruby supplied, her grin shaky, "I know."

A sharp nod of understanding and the outlaw was veering her steed and galloping off. Over a ridge, she found a good spot, thick with undergrowth, and tied up the antsy mare. Then, withdrawing a crossbow and bundle of bolts from her satchel, she dropped the bag beside the horse and continued on foot from there. While she scouted, her fingers were busy fastening her quiver to her belt, tucking the bolts away. Tracks in the area made her sure they had ventured into the wolf's region. Once a splash of red could be seen coming up the path in the distance, she chose herself an oak and scaled the base, finding a decent perch in the canopy overhead, crossbow slung across her back. Only thing to do was wait.

Like good bait, Ruby kept her pace languid and her eyes wandering. Girl even blew a jaunty whistle between her teeth every so often, certain to attract attention. But the closer she came, all the more nerves wore on the outlaw. Her patience was lasting. That was not a problem. It was the sinking feeling settled in her core that threatened her resolve.

_Perhaps today won't be the day_, she thought conciliatorily, _Maybe tomorrow_.

That was when she felt the disturbance. The girl had passed below Snow's perch and was headed deeper down the path. Others were approaching now from the eastern end. No need to guess who. As he emerged over the ridge, still quite a ways, leading a unit of horseback knights, she found herself distracted enough to have missed the signs stirring down below her. The slight rustle of the underbrush. The flock of sparrows taking flight. The warning hoot of a white owl nearby. The scatter of furry creatures on the forest floor. It wasn't until the girl's first scream reverberated through the air that Snow tore her eyes from the advancing prince.

By then, it was too late. She cursed herself for allowing the wolf to sneak upon her.

Thrusting the crossbow over her shoulder, Snow vaulted from her secure position, leaping towards the path, landing in a graceless roll, but it had her on her feet instantly. The wolf had already snatched Ruby. And because the girl had continued on farther than the outlaw had intended to let her, a clear aim was impossible.

Oh, how sudden a plan could turn. It all happened in the blink of an eye.

Forcing her body to the max, she chased after them, even after Ruby went silent, Prince James and his men hot on her heels. They had only just caught up when the trail twisted off the path into a treacherous patch of black forest. As they paused to dismount, leaving their steeds behind, Snow lost no such precious time.

As distance between the outlaw and her charge grew, she shifted her focus to tracks in the dark soil, still firmly packed from the storm. Just when she latched onto another burst of fleeing critters, pointing her towards the northwest, a certain Charming skidded still beside her, spinning her around to him with a rough yank.

"What is it you think you are doing?" he demanded, panting for breath, fury alight in bright blue eyes. She pulled at his grasp. "_Snow_."

"_Not_ wasting time," she countered sharply, dragging him with her as she stomped off, because he refused to release her arm. "It has Ruby."

"Yes, we heard the screams. Question is why the girl was out here to begin with."

Avoiding his glare, she pouted her lips. "We don't have time for this."

"I cannot believe you," he muttered, shaking his head, "I specifically asked—"

"Hush." Dropping herself into a crouch, Snow held up a staying hand, making his men freeze in their tracks. When he joined her there behind a patch of briars, hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword, she offered him a sidelong glance, rueful reluctance to his censure. Up ahead some fifty meters, a narrow mouth of a cave could be seen. She was willing to bet her life this was the den she wanted. "Do you know what we're dealing with?"

"No thanks to you." Expression still taut in tension, he added tersely, "I could charge you with impeding the royal guard, you know."

Given into impulse, she whispered heatedly, "I wasn't impeding anything."

"I asked you point blank if you knew anything about this," he replied, jaw clenched as she rounded on him, her cheeks flushed, bringing their faces near enough to brush. Narrowed eyes blazed. "You lied to me."

A pang of shame hit her. She didn't enjoy him looking at her like that. But it was an unwarranted sensation. One which only angered her more. "I just didn't want you getting in the way. I had it handled."

"Oh," he scoffed, "I can see how well you have it handled."

Fuming at both him and herself, a strangled noise of frustration escaped the outlaw. "If you hadn't come tromping into my trap, I would have ended this clean and simple. Now I have to go blundering blindly into a dark cave because of you."

"I think your perspective is significantly skewed."

"Bite me," she snapped, at a loss for solid argument, only to have their furious glowers disrupted by a strained throat clearing a few paces away. Whipping their heads around, Snow and Charming found one of his knights centering the rest of his men, a huddle of shifting stances and telling discomfort.

Summoning his composure, having recalled their current situation and what was and was not appropriate for the moment, Prince James rose upright, drawing his sword to idle loosely at his side. "Right then."

While he had his back to her, facing his men, Snow used the opportunity slip away.

"We search the caverns," he ordered briskly. "If it is den to the werewolf, likely the missing girls will be somewhere inside." Then he turned. "Snow, you stay—"

As his prince cut off, greeted by an empty spot where the fallen princess had been, guard captain with the strained throat explained, "She has already gone inside."

Huffing out a weary breath, free hand slapping against his thigh, Charming started off after the wayward woman, cursing about infuriating princesses.

Meanwhile, deep in depths of the labyrinth of a subterranean system, Snow procured a makeshift torch and struck flame from the jagged slice of bedrock. Not mindful of concealing her presence, far too impatient for such an approach when Ruby waited for her somewhere in this dank darkness, she swung the burning branch ahead and inhaled.

"Hello?" she called, listening to her breathy voice echo along the walls of the cavern. "Hello? Can anyone hear me? Hell—"

A calloused hand slapped over her mouth. Suddenly, she could feel the prince pressed against her from behind, his arm restraining. "Are you daft? What are you doing?"

Snapping teeth at fingers to get free of his muffle, she answered irritably, "Time for subtlety has passed, Charming."

"Do you _ever_—"

"Hello?" came the faint echo of a tiny cry brittle with fear and hope. The barest sound, it stopped the bickering pair cold. "Is someone . . ."

"Yes!" she yelled, lurching forward from the prince's hold, panic spiking as the voice died off in the distance, smothered by hollow darkness. "Keep talking there, sweetheart. We're coming." Somehow, as their arms fell to their sides and they burst into motion, Snow found her free hand clasped in the prince's until they parted at a passageway fork. "Which way?"

Catching her wide roving eyes, he instructed, "Listen."

After a seemingly endless moment of deafening silence, another cry funneled down the passageways. Sharing another glance, they delved recklessly into a western tunnel. Two more dangerous bends and a rocky descent into a lower level brought them upon one sunken pit of a cavern, where not just one but seven lost little girls were gathered, including an unconscious Ruby, as if they were cattle being collected into a herd.

No werewolf in sight.

"Talia?" she called, dropping swiftly into the pit with a thud, lighting dirty tiny faces with a swish of her torch. She knelt beside her bait, fingers searching for a pulse of life as blood seeped from a head wound, and something profound inside of her relaxed when she found one. "Talia, it's Snow White. Answer me."

"Princess Snow?" was the timid response from a far corner, full of disbelief.

From the edge of the drop-off, Prince James wanted to know, "Is anyone badly hurt?"

"No," an emaciated redhead in rags towards the front answered, "but the old one hit her head on a rock when he threw her down here."

"She will be fine," Snow assured, rising to her feet to sweep a trembling Talia up into her arms, propped on her hip, a fair burden all of eight years old. Girl wrapped her arms around her neck and clung fiercely without a word. "Charming."

Predicting her desire, he replied, "I don't feel comfortable leaving you all here."

"Yes, well, none of us are very comfortable right now. Regardless, it would be safer if we had a larger escort on our way out." In the glow of torch, she arched her brow at him. "Don't you agree?"

Gaze straying briefly to the crossbow hung at her back and the burning flame she held before he spoke, James tightened his grip on his hilt and stepped away from the edge. "Fine. I will assemble the guard."

Snow merely tipped her head in wordless comment, watching him disappear into the impenetrable shroud of darkness, and without his presence a swell of anxiety settled. Here she was on distinctly disadvantageous ground, cornered in shadow, swarmed by half a dozen frightened children, an unruly unconscious teenager, set to wait for the prince to round up his scattered men. Scanning her divided attention slowly over the mass of girls, she felt her chest constrict worryingly.

"He will be back shortly with his knights," she told them all, her voice strongly smooth and her expression schooled into unwavering confidence. "When he returns, we will all be going home. Does that sound good?"

Big blinking eyes stared up at her. Only six. Ruby made seven. Hadn't there been . . .

"Is this all of you?" she queried. "No one is missing?"

Temple rested on her collarbone, Talia murmured, "He took Bella away days ago."

_Six out of seven aren't bad odds_, she told herself, trying to combat a harsh kick her gut flipped from at the knowledge. _Maybe she's still alive_. But the outlaw knew better.

Footfalls shuffled up the passageway, dusting up dirt, and her crossbow was aimed up at the shrouded opening when the prince slid into view. Torch flame flickered at her feet. "Ready to get out of here?" he asked the girls lightly, dropping down himself into the pit. Behind him, a trio of royal guard emerged, hovering at the edge. "Come now. Hurry."

The little redhead was the first to clamber weakly to her feet. The prince hoisted her up over the edge, transferring her into the waiting grasp of a knight, and then proceeded to do so with all the rest, even sweeping Talia from the princess's hold, until it was only Snow and Charming. And a still unconscious Ruby.

"Follow the route out," he ordered his men, handing off Talia. "Go on. By any means, you are to get these children returned home safely."

As knights ushered the lost girls into creeping darkness, only one torch between them to light their way, Prince James rotated towards Snow, bending with her beside Ruby.

"You aren't worried about the wolf attacking?" she wondered, merely curious.

Taking the injured teen into a cradle in his arms, he shot her a look of unhappiness. "You and I both know werewolves are cowards. They wouldn't go after a group."

Responding in kind, she quipped, "Oh, don't tell me you are still sore about my lie."

"Why wouldn't I be?" He paused, rolling Ruby onto the edge before levering himself, and then offered Snow a hand. To which she ignored. "You haven't even apologized."

"And I'm not going to any time soon." Once she was level as well, he picked the teen back up and stalked off, leaving her to follow after. "I told you my reasoning."

"Your reasoning was far from sound."

"My reasoning was just fine. It was your interference that ruined everything."

The pair emerged from the main mouth of the cavern, daylight striking their eyes, blinding them for a moment or so. Their caravan had gone on ahead as commanded. "And if I hadn't come across your set, you likely might have been killed."

Offended, she folded her arms and scoffed. "What makes you think—"

"Snow!"

Thoroughly preoccupied, she hadn't even felt a wisp from the nasty beast, not until it launched itself at her from the upper arch of the cave mouth, clawed paws knocking into her shoulder blades, forcing her forward into the soil. As hot slashes ripped into her flesh, she gnashed her teeth and shoved up from the ground, rolling the slavering wolf off of her before it could latch fangs onto her jugular.

_This_ was why she couldn't be around the prince. He made her deaf, dumb, and blind. Senses sharpened keenly dulled lethally at his proximity.

Flat on her back, she watched the beast shake off her jostle, hunker down to pounce, and pulled her knees up to her chest in time to catch it in the snarling snout by her boots. Behind her, Prince James let Ruby drop to the ground to draw his blade. The wolf all but ignored his existence. It only had eyes for Snow White.

Before she could reach the dagger at her calf, it had her by the ankle, fangs crunching around the sensitive joint, scuttling backwards on all fours, dragging her across the earth. Her arms flung outward, searching desperately for a clutch, crossbow tossed out of reach, and dug fingernails into soil and moss, no protruding root to speak of for her to grab at.

The prince leapt over her writhing form, his sword already on a whistling downswing, when the wolf suddenly ducked, ground collapsing from beneath him. One second he was there and the next he was gone. Blade embedded in rock. Yet the beast still had her ankle pinned in his jowls, reeling her into what appeared to be a snare pit, a drop tunnel crafted for hunting and emergency escapes, probably had a lot of them surrounding his den.

"Charming!" she yelped, elbows digging into earth, neck craned, as he raised his blade above his head, prepared to stab it downward into the snare in his panicked frustration, right before her leg was jerked into the way. She was almost thigh deep in the snare now.

At the last second, he diverted the blow, blade having poised to cut through her shin. "Damn it all!" he cursed, scorching heat and vehemence, as he thrust his sword from hand and collapsed into the soil at her back. Inside the snare, she was jamming her boot heel into the beast's muzzle, his neck, his shoulder, trying to dislodge his fangs from her ankle. But she was quickly losing what little leverage she'd managed. When the prince cinched strong arms around her torso, planted his own boot heels into the ground, fighting off the wolf's pull, however, resistance tipped the scale.

As she was torn free, fangs scraping flesh and bone, and they fell backward at the shot of momentum, falling tangled together, a pained scream escaped the banished princess.

Heavy heartbeats passed before they exhaled, alertness shifting to heady anticipation. No wolf surfaced from the snare. Nothing could be heard beneath the earth.

Heaving a sharp sigh, Prince James bound his arms even tighter around the outlaw, burying his brow in a curve of her neck as he reeled from the stark startling relief he felt, from the overwhelming terror of the previous moment, her scream still ringing his ears, hollowing out his own lungs, something he had never before experienced. He wanted to savor that inexplicably delicious relief, _needed to_, for just a second.

But the woman in his arms, she was still swept up in the heated fury of battle. As soon as she caught her breath, she was breaking his hold. Lurching forward, she grabbed up his discarded sword, on her knees, and dived headfirst into the snare.

"Snow, don't!" He had reached for her, jolted forward himself, but she was too quick for him. Only his fingertips caressed a flow of ebony hair before she was gone completely. It took him a stunned beat to absorb what had just happened. Once he had, another curse slipped from his normally genial mouth. Snatching up her forgotten crossbow, he kicked at the rim of the snare, widening the hole, and gave chase. "Impossible woman."

Down at the very bottom of the drop tunnel, he tumbled clumsily onto a sandy floor, landing in a twisted heap. More darkness swallowed him whole. It was only by the grace of the murderous beastly growls and exerted feminine grunts of a struggle that he found his way through the lower level maze. Man was likely to suffocate in such confined space.

When he finally came upon them in an arched cavernous outlet, surprise rippled into the prince. She actually had the hellish thing cornered. Impressive. But he couldn't know how the tide of fray might turn. As he observed, bolting up the crossbow, he noted skill. Snow was passable with his broadsword, competent at best, but it was not her strength. And the more she enraged the wolf, all the more vicious it became.

Once the weapon was readied, he pivoted forward, yelled, "Snow! Switch!"

Backpedalling at his curt call, she swiped across the wolf's foreleg to get ground before tossing the sword into the air the same moment he launched her crossbow. It arced over the outlet. James latched onto the hilt with practiced ease, bringing it down and swinging it about all in one motion. As she caught her weapon, however, one heel met loose rock. The wolf lunged, jumping at her split second of imbalance, only to be narrowly deflected when the prince's sword sheered into the way.

"Come now, puppy." Goading it, he sliced repeatedly into the wolf's path, every time it headed for Snow, trying to keep it distracted while she propelled up onto a ledge for aim. "Let's play."

No matter what he did to aggravate the beast, though, it still was only ever interested in getting past him to the princess. That made maneuvering the lashing creature difficult. Soon enough, he found himself backed to the bedrock, sliding sideways to avoid a clawed paw smashing into his shoulder. Before it could draw back, he thrust his blade into flank, but the beast had been in motion, so it was only a glancing blow. Blood stung stale air.

Lips curled up, baring crusted canines, eyes flashing gold, wolf hunkered down again. Just as it leapt, paws springing off the floor, a bolt arrowed into its chest. A second later, two more joined it, a perfect grouping of heart shots. Lethal.

The beast dropped dead at his feet, inches shy of impact, and Prince James swiveled to look up at Snow, her focus still sighted at the line of the crossbow. "What took so long?"

"No surprise." Red lips curved into a teasing smirk. "You kept getting in my way."

Sheathing his sword, he donned his most _charming_ grin as he gazed up at the woman. "Beg your pardon, my lady."

Snow lowered her weapon with a lazy shrug. "You are forgiven."

"Oh, _I'm_ forgiven?" he parroted incredulously, and then to himself, "What audacity."

The sparkle that lit her emerald eyes at his fond exasperation was worth much more. Tilting her head, she slung the crossbow to her back, hopped down from her high perch, and sauntered closer, her limp disguised well. "Be sure he's not planning on getting up."

Toeing the flaccid beast with his boot, Prince James retorted, "Not bloody likely."

"Charming?"

Glancing up at the faint touch that ghosted down his arm, he asked, "Snow?"

Her flushed porcelain face scrunched cutely. "How do we get out of here?"

That hiked his eyebrows. Swaying archly away, he drawled, "Oh, so the mighty outlaw didn't consider that before she went leaping down a deep dark hole in the earth?"

"Never mind," she huffed, rolling her eyes, but a smile played at her lips as she spun. "I'll find my own way."

With her swollen ankle, it didn't take him long at all to catch up to her pained hobble. Side by side, they ventured through crisscrossing passageways and winding circles until things began to look familiar, until the stagnant air grew fresher, until seeping daylight guided them the remaining way. The entire time, stifling silence was bludgeoned by their incessant banter, as natural as breathing.

Outside, back at the main mouth of the caverns, no discarded Ruby was to be found. But there were no drag markings on the ground, and on the way back to the beaten path, her tied horse was missed as well, so she wasn't overly worried. Though she had to admit if only to herself, she had not made a very good lasting impression on the teenager.

_Perhaps this will give her second thoughts next time she wishes to put her rebellious self in the trajectory of danger with someone she hardly knows the likes of._

As they trekked the forest path, her arm hooked on his shoulders, his on her waist to take weight, Snow felt something hitch in her throat, some inevitable sentiment she had been grappling with ever since their first woodland encounter. Halfway back to the road, she just couldn't keep her curiosity in check any longer.

"So, how is the engagement going for you?"

"Huh?" was his ineloquent reply.

Snow forced on a crooked grin of lighthearted mockery. "Oh, don't tell me you have forgotten your own fiancée so soon. The spoilt blonde from the carriage?"

Prince James stroked the pad of his thumb across his bottom lip, scarred chin dipped, features drawn sober. Too quietly, he replied, "I haven't forgotten."

"How did she like your ring? Did it fit?"

The two walked on for several long moments, leaving her to bite the urge to fidget, before he responded. When he did so, it was by dropping his hand from his jaw to collar, where he caught a chain around his neck and pulled it out from under his leather vest. Hanging on the chain, emerald as rich as her eyes glinted in sunshine. Taken off guard, her rough pace faltered, bringing him to a halt beside her. He wore his mother's ring on a chain around his neck. Awareness of the fact and all its connotations spread very slowly.

"You haven't given it to her yet?" If the sound of her smoky voice registered just a bit too wavering for her comfort, she wouldn't acknowledge it.

The prince gave her a good long look, his thoughts plain to see written across his face, if only she cared to notice. "It just didn't feel right."

"Will it soon?"

"I think I will hold onto it for now," he told her, his tone soft and low and suggestive, ratcheting up her pulse.

Snow swallowed past the knot of unnerving things in her throat. "Oh."

Meaning in that piercing blue stare of his made the banished princess yearn, all while making her want to run far and fast. Not that it would aid her any. It was too late for _that_.

* * *

><p><em>TBC<em>


	4. Silent Echoes

**.**

_"Silent Echoes"_

_"Like soundless screams of a cursed soul, secrets bound will be untold, but if ever an evil as powerful as thee, able to banish bonds of a parent's creed, a truth be lost without a hope, forever rested in echoes of silence."_

: : :_  
><em>

End of a long exhaustive day with the house to herself, Mary Margaret was drawing a bath when the doorbell chimed, a faint ring under the sound of rushing water. Setting her news magazine of psychology aside, she came to her feet and glanced down at her attire. Yoga pants and a flimsy camisole. With no bra beneath, it was inappropriate. On her way across the living room, she nabbed a long sweater off a chair and wrapped it on, one arm pressed to her stomach to keep it in place. Soft pastel wool swished around her hips.

Thinking her roommate lost her key again, she opened the door with a fond smile shaping her mouth. But it wasn't Emma at the threshold. As his head came up and bright blue eyes fixed on her, she was stricken, light mood crashing with a jolt.

"Oh, no." Breathy, she gripped the edge of the wood, pushing it away, and told him, "You shouldn't be here." As rude as it was, she actually tried to close the door in his face.

Before it could latch, she met with resistance. Gently, yet still immovably, he forced it inward on her. Keeping his palm against the wood, feet on the outside of the threshold, he implored, "Mary, please. I don't know where else to go."

God, her insides twisted at the low sound of his voice. It skittered across her skin like a tangible touch. Almost as palpable a sensation as that which his piercing stare invoked. How could she turn him away when he looked at her like that? But this was a bad idea. She bit down on her lip as she struggled with it. Crossing paths on the street or the diner or the coffeehouse as they had a tendency to do was one thing. There were buffers there. Here, it was only David and Mary.

"I can't let you in."

"You can." Intent coaxing laced in his slow drawl weakened her knees. Along with it, her resolve. Their gazes locked. His head canted entreatingly. "What are you so afraid of?"

_You_, she thought, _and what you can do to me_. Sighing softly, she rested her temple to the edge of the door, and something long denied inside of her slipped from constraints. Healthy apprehension gave way to yearning. _If it's innocent, where is the harm?_

"Come in then." Letting go, she turned, padded over to the stove. "I was just brewing a pot of cocoa." And after taking it off the burner, she headed for the bathroom to shut off the bathwater. "Give me a minute."

Inside, she let herself fall back against the door, head tipped up, eyes screwed closed, palms flat to the wood by her sides, and breathed deeply. Composure. What she needed. She would be composed. She would be calm. There would be no queasy spells of turmoil churning in her chest that was entirely unwarranted. The man needed someone to listen. He needed to talk. That was it. She could sit and listen. She could be concerned without crossing any moral lines of boundary. Normally, she was excellent at boundaries.

"Get ahold of yourself, Margaret." Moving to the vanity sink, she gripped the porcelain and looked up into the reflection of haunted emerald eyes. "Where are your senses?"

The mirror was such a funny thing. She had spent many hours of her life staring into that reflective glass, searching for something unknown, trying to find genuine familiarity. Like many things in her life, something always seemed to be absent. There were pieces of her missing. Deep down, she knew that well, only she couldn't understand it.

Out the window, warm orange rays of sunshine streamed in as the day died down.

With a slow inhalation, she braced herself, scrubbed delicate hands over a tired face, and reached for the doorknob. In the living room, he stood waiting with his back to her, absorbing a colorful Monet painting she'd hung above the sofa. At her footfalls, he turned to give her a faint smile, moved as she moved toward the kitchenette. As she went for the counter and kettle, he slid onto a stool at the breakfast bar behind her.

"Cocoa?" she offered, fixing herself a mug and dipping a cinnamon twig into it.

"Got any coffee?" he countered, forearms propped and fingers lacing on the bartop.

Mary only nodded, pulling out a pot Emma had made earlier, and poured. "Creamer?"

"Just black."

Steaming drinks in hand, she rotated to face him and set them down onto the barrier of a bar between the two. Sliding his coffee over to him, fingers brushed, and she offered a sympathetic slant of her mouth. "You look exhausted."

After a swallow of hot bitter liquid, he said, "I haven't been sleeping lately. Like _at all_."

"What does your doctor have to say for it?"

"Stress of mental recovery," he retorted, a wry quirk of taut lips, as his ocean eyes fixed on her downcast face. "Thing is when I _do_ sleep, I have these really weird dreams."

"Why is that so bad?"

The gentle curiosity of the question chased his gaze down to his hands cradling coffee. "Ironically enough, I find these dreamscapes more comforting than the life everybody is telling me to be overjoyed to have returned. Not that I'm not happy to be awake. I am. But I'm supposed to be focused on regaining my memory. Instead, it's like I'm wandering aimlessly through my tangled subconscious and progress is impossible."

That winged her brow. "Nothing is impossible."

Glancing up, their eyes caught and he grinned. "Okay. Fine. _Daunting_ then."

As her long fingers played idly with her cinnamon stick, stirring it through the cocoa, Mary wondered, "So what are these outlandish dreams of yours about?"

"That's the thing. I'm not entirely sure."

"Well, do you know what is keeping you up?"

"Crying."

Taken aback, her eyes popped back up again in surprise. "Excuse me?"

David gave her a level look, even as one hand raked through his sandy hair, frazzled. "There are these echoes. I hear them every time I close my eyes. When I try to lie down, they are all I can think of."

Wary, almost reluctant, she had to ask, "Echoes of what?"

"A baby," he confided, rugged features drawn troubled, "A crying baby."

"Hmm," she hummed shortly, busying herself with upending her mug into her mouth, avoiding his gaze, hoping her guarded expression wasn't too telling.

Noticing her obvious discomfort, he gestured towards her with his coffee, chin tipped, a frown forming. "What is that look for?"

"What look?" she replied, setting her mug down with more force than she'd intended.

He couldn't help but smirk. "That one right there. You got all quiet for a second. Pulled into yourself. Now your nerves are making you fidget like you wanna bolt."

Mopping up the hot chocolate she'd spilled, Mary shot him a dry purse of her mouth. "You don't know me well enough yet to read _that_ much into my behavior."

Blue eyes alight, his smirk only broadened. "Now you are trying to deflect."

Huffing out a harried breath, she dumped soggy napkins into a nearby bin and spun to rejoinder, lips already parted, when a shrill buzz went off through the apartment. Holding up a quelling finger, she set her mug aside and padded into the laundry alcove. Not to be deterred, he followed at her heels, gulping down the last dregs of his coffee.

"Aren't you going to tell me what you think?"

"About what?" she queried, her tone distracted, as she corralled an armful of clothing from the dryer and dumped them into a waiting wicker basket. Kicking it aside, she bent over the washer, began picking wet items out to sort into two piles atop the dryer.

Watching her use the task to gather her thoughts, David folded his arms and propped up by the doorjamb. "My dreams."

"You didn't tell me about your dreams. You told me about auditory hallucinations."

He winced. "Let's just stick with echoes, shall we?"

"If you prefer," she mused, a thread of teasing in her voice, though she still wouldn't look his way. "Have you ever had a child?"

"Not that I'm aware of." A pause arced between them then. "Catherine didn't have much to say on the matter of children when I asked. But how do I know whether that's something she would've known? I'd like to think if I married a woman, I'd tell her about something like that. Without my memory, I just can't be sure."

"There are always ways to find out for certain," she said, bending to shove one pile into the dryer before beginning to string up the other on hangers. "Emma does that sort of fact finding for a living. I could ask her to look into it for you."

"That would be great." Dropping his empty mug on the dryer, he moved forward to give her a hand. "So, what is it you wanted to share?"

Mary glanced sidelong for a brief moment. "Come again?"

"Something I said obviously upset you."

Letting out a quiet sigh, shoulders tense, she hedged, "Not _upset_ precisely."

"Unnerved?" he guessed. Right on the money.

Though a reserved part of herself was inclined to avoid baring what felt like secrets, another equally vulnerable side felt compelled to confide in the man as he had done so. "It reminded me of a recurring dream _I_ used to have a lot is all."

"Oh?"

"I probably couldn't explain it," she said, struggling futilely under those bright eyes lit with inquisitive intimacy. "It was always so disorienting."

"Try."

There wasn't a chance of _no_. Just couldn't. Just didn't want to. He made her feel like no other ever had. This connected sense of self. This yearning for more. As if her world would glow should she ever achieve that enticing promise. She couldn't even describe what the promise was for, only that it was there, calling to her. His very existence was demanding and imploring and alarming to the woman. Since when could she not resist delving into the darker depths of mind and soul?

Restless hands coiled in a damp pair of trousers that belonged to Emma. Half clipped to a hanger, she let the legs drape low as she clutched the white metal edge of the washer within delicate fingers, which were feeling tingly and numb. Emerald eyes unfocused.

"Usually, it began with a storm." Her voice was soft and distant with recollection. "Thunder clouds would roll in and I would get this suffocating sense of dread."

"A common theme of the subconscious," he noted lightly, hooking a hung blouse onto one of the clothesline bars above the washer and dryer.

Mary curved her lips for him, lashes shuttered low, and drew in a deep breath. "I know it was always loud and dizzying. As the storm strengthened, I would hear the baby crying for me." Agitated slightly, she added, "I kept trying to find her. I never stopped. Not once. But the whole dream was like a maze. If I did manage to locate her, it didn't really matter. I could never hold onto her."

"You aren't a mother?" was his quiet question.

The pressure of his fixated gaze pulled her from the encompassing effect of the topic. "No," she told him after a hesitation that spoke volumes. "Every dream I found the infant in was the worst version of all."

"Because when she slips from your arms, it's like having your heart ripped out."

Flinching at such forbidden words spoken in that slow gravelly drawl, she sidestepped, dropping the hanger and snatching up the wicker basket of fresh laundry on her way out. Tone desperately dismissive, she said, "I used to have it all the time. Lately, not as much."

"Like I said," he replied, forcing levity into a strangled voice, as he followed after her, "Weird dreams."

_Indeed_, she thought, an aching pang of familiar emptiness overtaking her. Perhaps if she had ever suffered a miscarriage, or had an abortion, or given a child up for adoption, such a haunting would make sense. But none of those were the cases for Mary Margaret.

By the bay of windows, she chose a reading chair in view of the sunset to fold clothing. It took her time and space to bury all of the roiling emotion their conversation stirred up. David gave her that, bringing his mug to the sink and rinsing it out before he took a seat across from her, bright eyes spending half the time on the sky and half on the beauty.

When she was ready, she set aside a beige blouse and asked, "Are you hungry?"

"Starved."

Caught again on the sparkle of those cerulean orbs, her reply was a breathy, "Good."

He drummed anxious fingers on his knee. "You don't have plans?"

"Not when I have school in the morning." Rising to her feet, she left the basket behind and headed into the kitchenette_. Let them wrinkle_. "I'd inquire if you had any allergies but that seems risky."

As she had hoped for, an earnest chuckle vibrated in his chest, making her warm.

"Speaking of," she began, her tone concerned, pulling a package of chicken breasts from the freezer as he returned to his barstool. "How is your cognizance therapy going?"

"Stalled," he retorted, deepening the soft furrow in her brow as she pushed the poultry into a tray to be defrosted. "I haven't remembered a single thing. Catherine keeps trying to remind me of a past that doesn't even feel familiar, never mind _mine_, and it's all I can do to keep from losing what little sanity I have left."

Coming from the fridge with a bundle of produce hooked on her fingers, she shot him an understanding look. "From what I've learned of retrograde amnesia, most experts don't believe reminder treatment has any effect. Isn't it mostly about spontaneous recovery?"

"That's what they tell me." Furling one hand over the other fist, he propped his elbows on the bartop, watched her toss vegetables into a colander for prep washing. She moved in fluid efficient motions to get things done, setting up two skillets over two front burners and spilling in splashes of olive oil before sweeping the colander to her side of the bar. "So, you've been researching amnesia, huh?"

Eyes darting up to him for a split second, she answered, "Maybe a little."

He let his mouth tug up in one corner. "Why?"

Mary shifted the bow of her shoulders in a deflective shrug. "Curiosity."

"Oh." Though it was all he said on the matter, his tone conveyed plenty. "Need help?"

"Need?" she parroted lightly, slicing a dicing knife through a supple tomato. "Nope. But I could use it." With that, she set an eggplant on a cutting board and slid it across. "And I wouldn't worry too much. The memories are still where they are supposed to be. You just can't access them right now."

"Doesn't make it any less frustrating to have no clue who you are," he countered, letting the touch linger as he took a proffered blade from her hand. Shades of rose colored along the column of her neck up to her porcelain cheeks as she resumed dicing. He could not suppress his smile at the sight. _Lovely_ came to mind. "I guess it is kind of comforting. To know that it's all there. Waiting. But what if I can never get to it again?"

"I don't believe that will happen." Setting her knife down, she exhaled slowly, eyes soft and lips pouted slightly with soothing assurance. "If it does, I would say it just might be a blessing in disguise."

David arched a wry brow. "How so?"

"This is a chance at a fresh start." Picking her knife back up, she turned her attention down to chopping onions. "From a point like this, you could be anyone you wanted to be. Even when you do remember what came before."

Bright eyes clouded over, still fixed on her heart-shaped features, he mused softly, "Our memories define us."

Hesitantly, Mary wet her lips, replied, "Yes. Which isn't always a good thing."

"What defines me now?" he asked her, gaze so intent on her face that he nearly sheared a thumb off. Hissing under his breath, he stuck his bloody thumb into his mouth, finished up the purple eggplant with one hand.

Bittersweet humor played at the curve of her lips as she pushed the colander aside and bent over the bar to him, pulling at his wrist, wrapping the small wound in a dishcloth. Meeting his seeking stare under a veil of dark lashes, she told him, "You are who you are. Nothing defines you but your thoughts, your feelings, your words, your actions, here in the present, not the past. Remember _that_."

"What if . . ."

"What if what?"

Gazes locked, conflict etched into his features, he admitted, "What if my thoughts and my feelings and everything else are betraying the kind of man I was before?"

"Then you are a new man," she breathed, fingers ghosting along his skin as she sunk back onto her soles. Though she felt his underlying meaning in the scorch of his eyes, there was too much opposition inside of her to address it.

Whenever she saw David, her preemptive self-defense kicked in, spent the whole time whispering insidiously, _married, married, married, don't get too close_, and now she wasn't about to take a step she wouldn't be able to backtrack from. She needed to be better than that kind of stupid mistake. Regardless of how he made her insides churn and yearn.

For the rest of their task, cooking up chicken and eggplant parmesan, silence reigned. It wasn't deafening. On the contrary, an easy pressure cap found their simmering tension, leaving an electrified calm between them that grew more comfortable by the moment.

Well, except for that one incident.

"What are you doing?" he wanted to know, pausing in his work by the sizzling skillet to arch sideways, peering around the preoccupied woman.

Mary turned away. "Nothing."

He wasn't so easily put off. "Why are you wrestling with that canister of flour?"

"Just you worry about the minced garlic. I've got this."

"Okay," he said, chuckling to himself, and shifted back to the stove. A moment later, when the loud bang of her knocking the canister against the bar resounded, mutters of darn stubborn stuck things making him laugh again, he dropped his stirrer and moved to assist her. "Here, let me try."

But when he tried to swipe it from her, she danced from his range. "I said _I have this_."

"Mary, come on. You're gonna hurt yourself," he drawled, exasperated and amused, reaching for it again. Her eyes flashed warningly, lips parted in protest, and gave one last hard jerk to the deformed lid of the canister. This time, it actually came off. And a cloud of white flour puffed out, caking all over them both.

Blinking whitened lashes, she put a hand to her mouth and coughed out the powder. "Told you I had it."

The look he sent her then made the sooty woman dissolve into a fit of throaty giggles, broken apart by interspersing hacks. It was so infectious that he couldn't help but join in. Grabbing a dishcloth from a drawer, she dunked it under the kitchen faucet before using a handful to splash into her eyes, cleaning out her vision. As she was bent, he took her by the waist and tugged her back, a mindless instinct neither noticed. Angled around to him with the dampened cloth, she started wiping at his caked face, each still very much in the throes of hilarity.

"Sorry."

"That's alright. I've heard it's a decent exfoliant."

With a faux serious expression, she retorted, "Your pores do need work."

David swatted her wrist aside, sliding the cloth across his shadowed jawline, now free of chalky powder. "You know, I don't think this is what they meant by _all-purpose_."

Rolling her eyes, she dunked the dishcloth again and started on cleaning up herself. Until her hair was washed, it would remain a dulled salt and pepper shade. But her flesh got relatively rinsed and her sweater shook out. Since her guest didn't have the luxury to change his own, she opted not to replace her sullied top. A dusting would have to do.

From then on, amusement dwindled slowly, smoothly, leaving a quiet sense of peace. And as they sat down for the meal, contented conversation ebbed and flowed blithely. There were flushed cheeks and laughing smiles and gleaming eyes. Moods intertwined, vacillating between delightedly trifling and soberly aware, a fluid current.

Afterwards, she picked up their dishes and busied herself with tidying up the mess, declining his offer of assistance, which made him slip into his designated barstool with another mug of coffee. Once the dishes were done, she took a sponge to the counters and breakfast bar, scrubbing surfaces down as he lifted his drink out of the way. By the time she was humming softly below her breath, broom in hand, sweeping up spilt flour, he had drifted deep into his thoughts, watching her work. What she had said before, he couldn't get it out of his head. Disquiet consumed him.

Suddenly, as if sensing his need, Mary stilled. The swift arc of her sweep paused and knowing emerald eyes skated up to find his own, delicate fingers winding into a restless grip on the broomstick. Rather than voice redundant questions, she merely waited.

"About that fresh start," he murmured, twisting his mug around in circles so he could focus on the swirl of the liquid instead of her painfully beautiful features.

Breathing in deep, she compressed her lips and set the broom aside. "Yes?"

"It sounds appealing."

"But?" she prompted, letting fingertips glide across the bartop as she moved herself around to his side, stopping at the corner, leaving safe space between the two.

Lifting his head, David pinned her in place with a cuttingly bare stare. "I feel trapped."

For not the first time since meeting this man, words fled her mind. Unable to give him a comforting response, all she could do was reach over and clasp a soft hand over his own where it cradled his coffee. After a beat of absorbing delay, her fingers slipped in between his palm and the china and he released it to rub his thumb over her silky contoured base. He never looked up from there, apparently fascinated with sight of such simple contact, stirring warmth in her chest again, cheeks going rosy. Just as she was about to pull away, nerves bundled tight with dreaded want, he bent forward, dropped his head down to rest on their linked hands, upper arms spreading wide, and screwed his eyes closed with a sigh that made her crave the right for this swell of protective possessiveness awakened in her. The movement surprised her into frozen indecision for a stifling moment. But such brief hesitation had never been about to last. She knew she was powerless against her impulse.

Silently, she eased closer, not struggling against his clutch on her hand, raised another to sift fine fingers through his hair, same as she would to soothe an upset Henry. The sigh he gave at her first stroke, fingertips massaging scalp in the barest of feathery brushes, made something harsh and binding inside of her loosen. Doing so, she noted how it had grown an inch or so since the hospital, from coarse to smooth, enriching the sandy shade. As his jaw shifted, and set of his broad shoulders relaxed, she found her strokes going low until she skimmed over the nape of his neck, twisting a finger lightly in a short lock there. Somehow, between the deepening of his breath and the migration of his free hand onto the small of her back, making her spine arch, what was only to be a comforting touch became something stark and sensual, smoldering tension sparking of what almost felt like decades worth of denied desire.

How had she known where he held all his stress?

Rising upright, bright blue eyes searing her slowly, he snaked his grasp from her back to her hip, drew the hooded-lidded woman into his side, leant up, captured her mouth, all in one abrupt motion. She tore her hands away, held them out high, trembling fingers splayed wide, emitting a startled noise he smothered with his kiss.

Electricity surged, arcing between the pair, veins flooded with liquid heat, pulses high, hungry hearts pounded, and it was all she could do to not fall to pieces at the eruption. But with the fiery solace came a wave of anguished awareness. Wavering hands landed faintly on his shoulders, keeping him from following as she stepped out of his embrace, breathless and flushed, ebony lashes a fluttering veil over darkened emerald eyes.

He looked up at her with such wonder, such debilitating affection, it made her throat constrict until she could barely breathe. One palm slipping to rest above his racing heart, she told David, "This won't free you."

"Freedom is overrated," he murmured, voice hoarse and gaze awed, before rising up to cradle her heart-shaped face between his hands, fingers delving in cropped ebony locks. Bodies millimeters shy of flush, his head canted into hers, stealing another gentle brush of soft lips and cinnamon. Urging said lips apart with care, he swallowed her faint moan.

The thirsting sound reverberated in her own ears. It chimed in her mind, bringing her back to her senses, and she pushed at his chest to separate. Porcelain features were drawn with some intangible pain, emerald eyes still held closed, as she whispered incoherently, "Go. You have to go."

"Don't want to," he countered in a voice lower and stronger than her own, hot breath ghosting across a sensitive mouth, calloused hands against satin skin framing the shape of her face, and then even lower, "Don't make me leave."

A strangled whimper escaped her throat, lips pursed, brow furrowed, struggling with her own rebelling restraint. Fingers furled where they rested at the front of his shirt, hooking between buttons, urging him closer and closer still until they collided in a rush of amped passion for another delicious, surrendered, heartbreaking kiss.

Their moment of abandon didn't get very far.

He grazed his grasp on her down from face to neck to collarbone to torso, playing over the rhythmic arch of her ribcage, and walked her backwards around the corner of the bar, pressing her up against the side, following forward as she bent backwards over the edge. Her own hands rose to cling to his corded shoulders. Chests heaved together. The intense fervor kept building high, circling around them, enveloping the two, only to shatter in a brutal instant when the front door swung open, leaving nothing but a bereft shock.

Torn violently apart, each stood frozen, eyes locked, as Emma walked in.

"Sorry." Not by her tone, she wasn't. "Didn't know you were home."

"Of course," came Mary's pleasant reply, and everyone in the room ignored the way her voice flowed ragged and broken. She turned her clouded gaze on her roommate to see a worried frown marring her pretty face, red lips pursed in not so subtle disapproval.

Rather than speak of it, she averted her focus from the flustered pair and gestured at her red leather jacket and jeans combo, which were both covered in mud, much like the rest of the blonde. "Gotta get out of these clothes."

Watching the other woman head briskly towards her bedroom, Mary felt the distinctly hollow pang of regret. She didn't enjoy the way Emma had looked at her. Especially since she knew she had every right to. In her periphery, David propped his back against the bar, knuckles going white where they clutched the edge. The inexplicable charge connecting them still burned alive. Not quite wholly diluted by the outside world.

_What is happening to me?_

Frankly, it was kind of terrifying.

"Emma?" she called, hesitantly, distractedly, before the blonde could disappear, making her pause in her doorway. "I left a plate in the oven for you when you are ready."

Tapping impatiently at the doorjamb, flat, uninflected, she said, "Thanks."

Once she was gone, Mary lifted a hand to her mouth, face downcast, and left it there. She could feel David watching her, feel the palpable pressure of it as well as a slow caress, but felt fear at the thought of acknowledging him, of what she would allow herself.

"Are you alright?" he asked, skimming an innocently intimate touch over the column of her neck, exposed by disheveled sweater and cropped locks, earning a sweet shiver.

Trying desperately to tamp down roiling emotions, forcing her voice level, she replied, "This shouldn't be happening."

"But it is."

Turning then to meet captivating cerulean eyes, she drew a resigned breath. "I know."

He dusted aside a fringe of silky hair from her brow with his knuckles, a contradictory glow of peace in his gaze and in his formerly weary features. "I'm sorry for upsetting you."

"You've said that before." There was no bite in her retort. Only a curve of swollen lips.

"Meant it then too," he drawled, sliding closer, arms folded. "Yet I keep doing it."

"Only because I let you," she countered softly, an entire conversation carried between the lines, responding despite herself to the possessive touch he placed at her dip of spine, eyes falling shut. "Will you go now?"

He caught her chin, used the gentle hold to coax her eyes back to his own, and offered a crooked disarming grin. "Kiss me again and I might be able to stand it."

For a moment, just a moment, her hooded eyes lowered to his lush mouth as it filled her head with all sorts of inappropriate notions. Then she snapped back to her senses and pulled _far_ away, expression smoothing into demurred chagrin. Arms crossed over chest, she accused, "You are not seriously being charming right now."

Brow arched, he shifted the grin into an unassuming smile. "Your word. Not mine."

"Goodnight, Mr. Nolan."

"Oh, don't tell me we are back to _that_." But he didn't protest when she latched onto his shoulders and herded him to the door. He went amicably. Once on the opposite side of the threshold, however, he slapped a palm to the wood before it could close on him, darted inward, stealing one last kiss before she could avoid it, and then buried his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels with a satisfied smile as she stood stunned. "Goodnight, Ms. Margaret."

_Oh, boy_.

* * *

><p><em>TBC<em>


	5. Tangled Web

**.**

_"Tangled Web"_

_"Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."_

: : :_  
><em>

There were many things Prince James could not successfully banish from his thoughts since the presence of such an indomitable woman had been thrust so rudely upon him. But none were as consuming as the fierce pleasure he felt to find that the lovely outlaw known as Snow White not only _possessed_ impetuous fire, but burned bright and blinding with it from within. Fire. Fury. And a soul-deep compassion she tried to hide under spite and cynical sarcasm. But her smile, oh, her smile could light up the darkest day. He shut his eyes and was haunted by the memory of her shining emerald eyes. Hair like ebony. Lips as red as blood. Skin as white as snow. Heart as admirable as seraphs. Wit as sharp as a king's blade. And wounded. A magnificent female to be sure. A complex creature.

No longer could he pretend otherwise.

He coveted what he could not have. Craved what once had been stolen from him and now danced at the edges of his vision like the ghost of a little girl he used to know well. Glimpses offered. Only ever glimpses. Enticing. Inviting. Unfulfilling.

No longer could he bide his patience.

He needed an excuse, any one at all would do, so he could see her again. _Once more_, he convinced himself, _just this once more to cast her from my system. Then I will return and do what I must._ But deep down he knew perfectly well what would happen the second he laid eyes on the fallen princess again. This infatuation could only grow.

On the eve of the next moon, Prince James seized opportunity as his kingdom fell into a momentary state of repose, his schedule lax, and announced he would be departing for some quality hunting time soon. Choosing one of his most trusted intelligence paladins, he sent his man into the heart of the Enchanted Forest to gather what rumor he could of the outlawed princess's recent activity, so the prince might narrow his starting region. Though he had done so before, it was not a meager feat to take on, tracking down such an elusive prey. At the last possible moment, his spy arrived with fairly credible word hailed from Treacherous Pass territory, and he couldn't help but smile. So near to the harsh base of Sídhe's mountain, such rough winding land would naturally attract Snow White.

The prince set off on his journey a day earlier than expected at the news, so anxious was he to find the one which consumed his thoughts. It was an unpleasant trek from here to say the least. The weather. The commoners passed. The whispered directions chased. The steed. Even the trees gave him trouble. As if forces conspired against his striving.

When he finally found her, it was not precisely how he had imagined.

After trailing fresh hoof tracks for half a day, sounds of rushing water reached his ears. Dismounted, he let a cautious hand rest on the hilt of the sword hung at his waist. If such tracks had been the source of unsavory characters, which was likely so, since no one else would venture this deep into Treacherous Pass territory, he would be sorely disappointed. And liable to resort to ungentlemanly violence. What he came upon, breaking through a coverage of sprawling foliage burnt with autumn seasons, was a pivoting waterfall hung above a small basin of freshwater. And something else . . . decidedly _not_ unsavory. In fact, what he came upon, _unintentionally_, could be called the exact opposite of _un_savory.

Being a nobleman, Prince James would have averted his gaze be it any other day.

Or any other unsuspecting beauty bathing bare in the water there before him.

Snow had not heard his approach, for being an experienced hunter, he knew how to step lightly in the woodlands. But he was so knocked off balance by the sight he had just stumbled upon, focus splintered asunder, one boot landed heavily on a protruding root, alerting the banished princess to an uninvited presence.

Perched on the edge of smoothed rock bordering the basin, legs submerged, she was out of reach of the pile of garments left on a fallen timber further up, and yet still had neglected to leave herself wholly vulnerable. From nowhere, she twisted, shifting his view from porcelain expanse to her front, not that he had time to admire, because a blade flew from her flung out arm in the same moment. Dagger embedded itself in bark where his head had been only a second ago. He ducked too quick, found himself on his backside in the soil, and looked up in time to watch recognition flare through her grim features. With recognition came relief in the form of a radiant smile. Radiant and unfazed.

Tone huskier than usual, both an accusation and an apology, "You startled me."

"I assure you," he replied, but had to stop and swallow to find his voice again, "it was purely accidental."

That breathtaking smile mutated into something impish. "I am so sure."

"Honestly."

As she clambered onto her feet, sauntering from the sharp edge, long damp locks of her ebony tresses swayed over her shoulders, falling into the way of her chest like a veil, but the rest remained exposed. After a stupefied moment, he attempted to turn his head, _truly_, only didn't quite succeed. He was bewitched from his senses. There was no modesty about her standing before him there in all her dripping wet glory. In fact, it was he alone who was flustered, much to her apparent amusement.

"Are you just going to lay gawking all day or will you hand me my gown?"

The quip lilted teasingly, eyes sparkling as if every dirty and not so dirty yet still mortifying thought flitting through his head this moment was being broadcasted for her, hands propped on a delicious swell of hips, head canted playfully, knee cocked aside.

_Get hold of yourself, James. She's baiting you_, a recessive voice whispered to the prince. _Quit acting like a foolish schoolboy._

When he did just that, rose to dust himself off, advanced on her slowly, gazes locked, even as he bent to snatch up the bundled folds of her attire, he had the warm satisfaction of seeing her superior smirk richen into a look fueled by surprised heat. Finally, he egged a rosy blush over her curved cheeks, halting mere centimeters from her uncovered body, only it wasn't anything resembling bashfulness that put it there.

With just a touch of mockery, he murmured, "Your garment, my lady."

"Again with the class title," she said, mostly to distract herself from her sudden nerves, snatching the gown from his hands and shimmying into it from overhead. "Do you truly think me still a lady, Mister Prince?"

Bright eyes skimming down her haphazardly clothed form, he crooked her a grin. "Looks a lot like a lady to me."

"_Charming_." It was half quip, half insult, because she hadn't missed a flicker of dismay which preceded his alluded consolation. Rotating around, she swiped her drenched locks over one shoulder, indicated the loose bindings up her spine, and demanded, "Lace me."

Long fingers weaving quick and nimble, he obeyed without comment, allowing one momentary lapse in restraint for himself by slanting closer, breathing in the odd scent of honeysuckle and cinnamon she exuded. Once finished, he allowed himself another lapse by setting his hands on her stiffened shoulders. "It is _very_ good to see you, Snow."

The garment was nothing but a simple traveler's gown, unadorned and soiled with the marks of her current wildland lifestyle. Yet she could be never more exquisite. Or perhaps she could. Though if that were so, he wasn't sure he wished to find out. He was already far too captivated for his own wellbeing and that of his kingdom.

"How long are you here?" she wondered, a question posed casually, before swiveling on her heels within the space of his arms, making calloused hands slip downward.

With her gazing up at him that way, emerald eyes wide and guarded, he was tempted to say something absurd like, _For as long as you'll have me_. Instead, his hands dropped to his sides where they were safe, and he said, "For now."

Lips pursed, chin lifted, she gave him a slight nod of acknowledgement before moving for a pair of muddy riding boots left by the timber. She perched, tugged them on her feet, and stood to yank her dagger free of its tree. When the blade was tucked away, she slung on her mossy cloak, fastened it at her throat, and asked him, "Your steed?"

"Beyond the bend," he answered on automatic, gesturing into the dense treeline.

Snow smirked. "Good. Then let us go."

"Where to?"

The sly slant to her head set him on edge. "Oh, you'll see."

Once they were trekking through the unruly undergrowth side by side, he volleyed, "Might I inquire where yours has gone?"

"My colt?" she countered, brushing back ebony locks curling as they dried in humid forest air. The temperature was sweltering this near to Sídhe. "Funny thing about such Treacherous Pass is that gentle beasts tend to get spooked frequently around here. Whelp ran off on me."

Over her shoulder, a flash of mischief stirred uncharacteristic worry inside the prince. Though he hadn't long to dwell on it, since they came upon his white warhorse cinched to a sycamore a few paces later, a worn satchel of her belongings hidden under the brush near his spindly hindquarters. The matured stallion was sturdy, well trained, and quick as natural lightning. There were reasons Prince James had chosen the creature. He shouldn't let the outlaw unnerve him so. But she had a knack for it.

"Lucky I found you then," he drawled, unbinding the restless steed and saddling up.

Collecting her satchel, Snow hooked a strap over one shoulder and reached to clasp the proffered boost, fingers wrapping his corded forearm, allowing his strength to swing her astride the majestic beast. Chest pressing lightly to his vested back, she let her touch slip away slowly, a lingering dance of fingertips along his rich skin. "Was it luck?"

"What else would it have been?"

"Premeditated skill?" she quipped, catching his eye as he veered reins to the left and spurred into a cautious canter. At his silence, stifled smile playing at his mouth, she dug her grip deeper into the handhold of his flanks and said, "Admit it. You came for me here. You sought me out. All the way into the Treacherous Pass. _For what_, I wonder?"

"Perhaps I wanted another misguided adventure. Or I simply enjoy your company. What makes you think I have ulterior motives?"

Lips hovering close to his ear, she retorted, "Experience."

"Not with me."

"And you are so special?"

Jaw clenched, shifting in discomfort, he countered, "I do not know, Snow. Am I?"

Such a faceted question. Breath hitched in her chest. The arc of a charge jumped like electricity between them both. Before she could decide how to react, how to feel or think, a gnarled outstretched branch coalesced in their path, forcing them to flatten downward over the sleek steed, who's pace never faltered. When they swung upright, she grabbed at her chance of diversion and pointed an arm into thicket to the right. "That way."

Once past the worst of the clinging growth, his stallion breaking through the eaves, Prince James shifted the reins to one hand, used the other to catch hers where it clung to his side, and pulled it around in front of him, forcing her closer, so near he could feel her heart beating against his shoulder. The move sufficiently unbalanced his canny outlaw. "Tell me, Snow, what is it that brings you this far out into wildlands?"

In a rare moment of unguarded honesty, she set her chin on his shoulder, relaxed in his controlling grasp. "Since the incident with the werewolf, I had been keeping close by fringes of the kingdoms, keeping myself busy. My activities drew too much attention to my presence. The queen's huntsmen were close. Things became heated." Pausing shortly, she furled fingers over his gloved grip, changing a leveraged hold into a subtle embrace. "It was necessary to withdraw for a time."

Magnetic, bright blue eyes lowered to their joined hands. "I see."

"Slow," she commanded, giving his sternum a communicative squeeze as she did so, and he pulled at the reins without delay, ingrained instinct to comply to her dulcet voice, implicit faith in such an enigma he was helpless to fight. "We are on foot from here on."

"Why?" he queried, even as he dismounted after her, stroking a quelling glove over the white warhorse, who whinnied his unhappiness at being led so deep into the dark depths of reportedly haunted badlands.

Glancing over her shoulder with a wry arch, Snow hiked over a particularly deceiving outcropping of stone, coated slick and sharp with moss and creeping ivy vines. "Security."

Leading the disgruntled stallion by the bridle, he followed her carved path as closely as was possible for the grounded animal. She waited on the other side, hands on her hips, all breathless smiles and flushed cheeks, looking skyward beyond him, not that there was much light to see through the smothering canopy of the black forest.

This region she had led him into was deeper and darker than that of which they came, danger rode thicker in the muggy air, ricocheted a din of eerie noise, enveloping shadows crawling inward from all around, promising unpleasant things. Keen hunter instincts told him this was a very bad place to be. But she had brought him here for a reason. To where she had taken haven for the moment. He trusted Snow White. Trusted her judgment and her proven abilities. Despite no logical reason to support such a stance.

From there, they traveled at a leisurely pace while the sun set in the west, reflecting an array of dwindling daylight shards, moving side by side, his stallion following at what was quickly becoming an annoying proximity, for his muzzle kept bumping at the prince.

"When am I going to find out where we are going?"

"When we arrive."

Rolling his eyes at her sassy comeback, Prince James plucked at a nearby creeping vine on his way past, sweeping her around a second later, interrupting their jaunt. For no real reason other than his own foolish ailment, he brushed knuckles across her brow to dust aside curls of ebony tresses, tracing the curvature of her face, tucking locks at her ear, before slipping reluctantly away. Left adorned in the tousled waterfall of her hair was one precious jasmine blossom.

The only way to describe how she gazed at him then was _mesmerized_. Or maybe it was he who was mesmerized, and she who was bewildered, discomforted, daresay frightened by her own sudden vulnerability. How easy it was for him to disarm such a creature.

"You have come a long way," was how she chose to respond, shifting her weight from one sole to the other, bringing their bodies closer, nearly flush.

He eased warily through the opening she provided, one hand straying a few inches up to linger at her hip. "Yes."

"For me." Though it wasn't meant to be a question, her melodious voice lilted anyway, speaking of what trouble she was having accepting such a fact.

Again, he said, "Yes."

"Oh." Like that explained everything. Her eyes dropped to hide beneath black lashes as his fingers furled over her hip and used it to reel her in the last modicum of distance ever so slowly, breathless with blooming anticipation. Red lips barely moved at all when she murmured thickly, "You aren't a very wise royal."

"Maybe so." Millimeters apart, poised for a first kiss, both prince and outlaw hesitated in unison, clouded gazes locked. A sigh got stuck in his throat as he caressed a soft lock, brushing it from her colored cheek, and he braved to say, "But I cannot help how I feel."

Perhaps because shiny eyes flashed at his words, or the way disbelief chased by pain etched across her lovely features, yet mostly because he had been dying to do just so from the very moment Princess Snow returned to his life, Prince James would have dragged her to him then, would have crushed her mouth with his own, taken what he wanted before her buried fear could mingle into fury, and would have weathered her resultant hailstorm. He would have thought it well worth her eventual ire, simply to possess such a memory, keep it with him after they inevitably parted. But he never got the chance. The moment was torn from him in the same rude jarring fashion as everything he experienced having to do with this woman who stood before the prince.

If she hadn't distracted him so badly, surely he would have noticed the shoddy blind perched high above their heads in twin ancient oaks. As it was, however, he remained unaware of their watchers until a camouflaged pair pivoted down to the forest floor and descended upon them in swift fluid motions. Bows were drawn and aimed squarely before he could unsheathe his sword. Still, he made an attempt, arm cinched around her waist to reverse their positions, trying to remove Snow from their lined trajectory.

Suddenly, his intentions were diverted, her curvy body pressed into him from the side, angling partially between him and the archers, blocking his holstered hip, and she rested a quelling hand atop his own where it gripped his hilt, preemptively stilling his actions.

"Don't be hasty, Charming." Glancing up with a flutter of lashes, she grinned.

That was when he understood. Rankled, he guessed, "Friends of yours?"

To the waiting archers, she commanded lightly, "Take off your masks, boys, let me see your faces." When they acquiesced, or one did anyway, lowering his bow to tug down the filthy cloth covering half his scruffy face, she turned a wry look on her newest companion, quipped cutely, "Nope."

"Definitely not," groused the unmasked archer, as his partner stood stoic.

Snow shot him a riling sidelong glance. "Oh, don't be that way, Beryx. You know once you wanted to be my friend."

"That was _before_!" he snapped, getting his back up, only to be more riled when all she did was laugh at his chagrinned upset. Smacking his partner on the shoulder, he spun on his heels and stomped off into the trees, but not before barking gruffly, "Watch 'em both. I'm a get Mircea." And over his shoulder, he added, "Don't go letting her fool yer again."

Gaze fixed on the other archer, Prince James wondered, "_Before_ what?"

"Nothing at all," she retorted, not quite stifling a soft giggle. But when he shifted left, almost veering from the shield she had casually made of herself, her mood sobered quick. Turning her face away from the remaining archer, she projected warning from her eyes, murmuring softly below her breath, "Cover your crest."

He followed her telling gaze down to the hilt of sword they still grasped together in the snug space between their bodies. When her hand pulled away, he wrapped his palm around the crested tip of it, watching her rotate to approach their unresponsive guard, her fingers splayed and dancing playfully in the air by her head in what was supposed to be a sign of accordance with the arrow aimed at her heart. So, she didn't want her friends to know he was royalty. Made sense. These seemed the unsavory characters he had been wary of earlier this afternoon. Still, he would be asking her about this as soon as they had a moment of privacy. In the meantime, he used her little act of preoccupying the archer with teasing queries to pull off his leather gloves and hook one over the hilt of his sword.

"Are you certain you are not Emil?" she pestered, swaying so close the arrowhead got tangled in her hair, nearly giving the prince a heart attack, but both she and the archer handled it well. "Oh, let me fix that." As she unwound her tresses, smile curving her lips, she persisted, "Because I thought Beryx never went anywhere without Emil. And he's the only one of you I can never get to speak. The rest never shut up even when I beg."

"What lies are these I hear?" a honeyed rasp of a voice interceded, preceding a smooth advance of a dark man from the low drape of willows ahead, blurring what lay beyond. Garbed in leather trousers and vested shirts, he appeared decidedly less disheveled than his watchers, coiled bronze hair tied at the nape. His expression was slick and syrupy when it focused on Snow. "You have likely never begged in your entire spoiled life."

"It's called hyperbole." Though his tone had sounded good-natured, even if the words were incongruent, _hers_ was sharp, as were her features before she glanced at the prince and adopted her usual façade of buoyancy. "Mircea. Why the warm greeting? I was only gone a few days."

"Yes," he replied, skating dark narrowed eyes over the prince, who was growing more disturbed from this scenario by the moment, "and you return with company."

At the cool drawl, she sidled away from the archer, who had yet to drop his guard, bringing herself into the path of the oncoming leader, who was unhappy with her now. "True," she said, softening her melodic voice, pinning him with a stare that was obviously not intimidated, and gave a heartbeat of pause for weight. "I trust him."

"With your life?" he challenged, a calm threat coloring his mien, making the prince shift closer before the raise of a bow held him reluctantly at bay.

Snow did not hesitate, didn't even blink, only nodded. "Is that not sufficient for you?"

In a calculatedly gentle movement, Mircea rubbed at his cleft chin, faux consideringly, before he transferred the touch to her temple, catching a stray curl of ebony hair to slide teasingly between his fingers, a chilling curve to his mouth. "Of course."

The outlaw released a shaky sigh as soon as he swiveled away, gesturing for his archers to fall back with a negligent wave of hand, and folded her arms over her chest in a belated display of defensive emotion. Not moving an inch, she watched Mircea swagger the way he had come, leaving the archers to climb up into their blind to resume watch duty.

Prince James was beginning to get the picture here. He was . . . _displeased_ to find her keeping company with a band of filthy gypsies. To say the very minimal. Though it might have had more to do with their tentative moment being harshly disrupted. More probable was the familiarity in which this irksome gypsy king of theirs chose to toy with Snow, as if he possessed some claim on her, and implications left the prince full of unpleasant ideas. Maybe the man held such a dynamic with all of his people, and she now included herself as such, but instinct informed him it was more.

Especially her uncharacteristically subdued demeanor in front of Mircea.

At her elbow, a faint yank jostling her from her heavy thoughts, a bit harsher than was his intent, he demanded, "Why have you brought me here?"

Deceivingly delicate shoulders shrugged. "This is my home. For the moment."

He was halted short in his aggravation then, a more gracious inner voice of reason reminding him of her way of life, of her lack of options, of how much of a cad he had been ready to be. Having caught himself, he held his tongue for now, following her through the drape of willows into an enclosure of sorts, bordered off by cliffs of Sídhe. Within the cove was a sprawling encampment, concealed quite effectively. Milling about, he could count a few dozen people of similar state and shade, not particularly interested in the new arrivals since their leader had already been apprised and the couple were still alive.

"The first time we met," Snow told him in a low but airy voice, hooking a grasp around his arm like a proper noblewoman, "I wasn't my most beguiling. They tried to ransom me for the reward on my head."

"You are full of guile," he countered consolingly, and she laughed heartily, choosing to ignore the frown of consternation that belied his witty remark.

"Yes, well, I have since earned their allegiance. You have not."

"Are you trying to tell me something?"

Leaning in close again, eyes serious and sparkling with mirth all at once, she warned, "Do not get territorial and you will get along splendidly, Charming."

Despite the silly thrill of pleasure he got from her backhanded acknowledgment, restless fingers tightened on the reins of his trailing stallion. This was _not_ how he had envisioned finding his albatross. Snow was now living amongst a clan of thieving gypsies. Lots of _male_ gypsies. On her own. He couldn't say which was worse. And he had to admit to himself how clueless he had been in regards to her banished lifestyle. Now he knew.

And he liked it even less.

Guiding with subtle pulls, Snow led him into a nest of black tupelos apart from camp, where a stable of horses had been gathered, cinched off to various bases. Vibrant splashes of crisp burnt sienna foliage fluttered around them as he fastened his stallion near a pail of drinking water.

It really was a beautiful spot. Towering stones cleared the canopy of the black forest enough to provide a wide cast of brilliant sky. But he was in no mood for admiring it. After digging out a satchel of his own from the saddlebags, he followed her into a pitched canvas tent which was nailed down on the cornered edge of the camp groupings, close to the horses and the trickle of stream wedged between a sliver of stone at the rear border, distant from the main entrance of the cove and the core of the encampment. Smart.

"Had to fight for it," she noted wryly, catching his expression, and smiled brightly as she ducked and tugged him inside without glancing where she was going. "Literally."

Within the shelter, space was limited but not claustrophobic. A single cot thatched of wool and carved wood pushed against the left, while a grounded crate of a surface sat on the right, cluttered with crudely drawn mappings of the realm, full of messy notations. Lanterns jarred hung from the supports on either side of the entrance.

Letting her bag drop, Snow bent forward, sweeping the crate and burying her work under a stack of raggedy tomes. "No matter what I do, I cannot scare Little Lena enough to get her to keep her nosy nose out of my belongings."

Prince James watched her flit around her current _home_ with anxious impatience, feeling a swell of something like disgruntled hunger spread through him, and could not resist his next impulse. Gripping her by the waist, he swung her around and down to sit at the edge of her cot beside him, sliding his grasp from her hourglass torso to her wrists. Holding them there between the two, he asked with banked fervor, "How long will this sort of thing continue, Snow?"

"I don't know what you mean," she countered, an imperious lift to one dark eyebrow, fingers furling into loose fists within his hold. "_This_ sort of thing? You mean my life?"

Unconsciously, his grip tightened. "If that is what you wish to call it."

"I am on the run. Did you expect me to be housed in a palace like yours? Taken in by respectable trustworthy people? Those kind of beings don't risk their necks for strangers."

"These do?" he challenged, nodding towards the din of iniquitous activity outside.

Snow pulled at his grasp, stopped when he didn't acquiesce, and said, "They barter."

In that moment, ice in her gaze to hide the disappointment and longing alike, she had never seemed more formidable to the prince. Or more breakable. "What if you returned? With me?" The words flowed from his mouth before he could reconsider, before he could grasp how severe the offer would prove, all it would cost, yet he would not have taken it back either way.

But for the fallen princess, such an idea was so ludicrous to her, a burst of laughter escaped in response, bitter and dejected even as it chimed with spirited amusement. Wistful, a sigh parted soft lips. "Oh, Charming." Twisting her wrists, she flipped their hold until she had him in her grasp, shaking her head. "I am not a damsel in distress."

Faint relief, of the weighted burden foreseeable, failed to come anywhere near close to such intense fiery disappointment which filled him. "No. Just a very distressing damsel."

"There is no way to save me," she assured, setting his hands in his lap before he could curl them to keep her there, and rose away. "Even if you could, I have it well in hand."

"Do you now?" he volleyed, forcing levity into his tone to prevent her from fleeing at any alarm of dangerous emotion.

Gratitude in her smile, she twirled on her heel, canted her head, and propped herself on her crate, ankles crossed. "I may tell you all about it. Someday."

"Is it underway?"

Patronizingly, she remarked, "These things take time, Charming."

"As I recall, such rescue of yours entailed nothing but thievery. I take it you have yet to amass your necessary fortune?"

"When I do, you'll know it."

"How so?"

Suddenly sober, she answered, "I'll be gone."

_That's right. Gone. Out of your reach. There is nothing you can do about it._ Sharp pangs rippled through his insides, making it hard to breathe, yet his countenance remained still as he could keep it. He wasn't used to feeling so powerless. _Why can't I save her?_ a primal piece of him railed. _Why can't I have her?_

Batting down a flare of opposition, he forced out, "Still intent on running then?"

Determined to not let the sentiment in his bright blue eyes sway her, Snow kept harsh on the waver of her features, pursing her lips against all the meaningless words wanting to escape, chose her reply carefully. "That's the plan."

He pushed off the cot, drawn towards her, an undeniable magnetism. "I wish—"

Shrilly, a chime rang through the cove, echoing off cliffs of Sídhe, making her swing to her feet and wrap her arms around herself. "That would be Calamity Carl. Food."

_Leaves a bitter taste_, he thought, exhaling resignedly as she escaped from the subject. Sweeping her unruly mane into a lazy chignon as she went, she led him from her quarters across the encampment into a circled seating area around a dormant bonfire, where her current acquaintances were gathered, laden with makeshift dishes of meal. Seeming as if she belonged, Snow took him lightly by the forearm and pulled him down onto a timber beside her, as an unkempt little girl rushed by, pausing only long enough to slough off her armload of clay, a pair of cups and a plate of sizzled meat. The next moment, a burly man stopped to slosh hard cider into said cups. From then on, his evening was a whirlwind.

Surprisingly to the prince, it was almost easy to forget where he was, who he was with, and the precarious state of his presence here. There was no distrust or animosity between the nomadic people. Correspondingly, ale and laughter flowed quicker through the night, no one concerned with the stranger in their midst, everyone carefree and spirited.

Rhythmic dissonance was all around.

Once most had consumed their fare, roughly crafted musical instruments conjured up a stirring melody, provoking blithe folks to their feet in lively unchoreographed motion, iridescent Snow White one of the first, abandoning her place at his side. Distance from the warmth of her left him feeling bereft. Yet as he watched her dance by blazing firelight, glittering emerald eyes and parted ruby lips, jasmine blossom still tangled in ebony locks, watched her be passed between a slew of jovial gypsies, all vibrant with good cheer and perfectly genial to the banished princess, he couldn't help but appreciate the rare sight.

And also the irony of such a circumstance. For now he could see the truth, despite his initial appalled resistance to the idea, and the prince couldn't contain a mirthful chuckle at the realization. _Well, how about that?_

Gypsy bandits. Common outlaws. _She_ fit in excellently. Except she wasn't so common.

_Under her spell_, an impartial part of him pointed out so helpfully, as he got lost in the mirage again, which bent backwards in a playful dip within the arms of an older gypsy, cheeks flushed and laughter breathless, ebony curls flipping about. _Tangled up in her web._

Perhaps she would be his black widow.

Wonder was poisoned by a hot pierce of jealousy, however, when the delighted beauty spun from the elder to be caught by the gypsy king Mircea. He waited for her maneuver, one which would shift her away from the unnerving man with hands straying to places they ought not be, but it never came. In fact, Snow didn't seem to mind her new partner in the slightest. The dangerous undercurrent from their previous encounter appeared to have been replaced with a camaraderie that made his knuckles itch. There was too much affection shining in those dark eyes fixed on her. Too much to keep himself from rising to his feet and crossing the distance.

"Charming," she greeted, her voice a lilting cadence carried with the melody of music, pushing from her current companion to twirl obligingly into his approach. As he reached in instinct to bracket her waist, she glanced over her shoulder to dismiss Mircea with her sweetest smile.

Rolling his eyes, low chuckle rising up, Mircea rotated towards a nearby redhead with a brusque call of, "Inara."

Still agitated, Prince James corralled her smoothly from the knot of drunken dancers. On the fringe of the bustling glow, he let her sway him to the resonance, fingers trailing up and down her exposed arms. "What is it with that guy?"

"Who? Mircea?" she teased, brow rising high, biting into her lower lip.

He wasn't amused. Or he didn't want to be. But there were things he couldn't avoid when it came to her infectious power. "Yes," he drawled, holding onto his fraught bother. "Does he intimidate you or . . . charm you?"

Snow beamed her amused pleasure. "Neither." Twirling in close, she brought a curved mouth to his ear, eyes sparkling with mischief, and murmured playfully, "You are the only one who charms me, Charming." And then, as his breath hitched, she swung aside with a lilted brow and a warm smile, swept away from him in a current of bodies.

Oh, how he was tangled in her web. Most definitely.

During the respite of night, after the majority of camp had retired to respective tents, he found himself sitting by the dwindling bonfire, cup of half-consumed ale forgotten in his grasp, gaze fixed on the flame, not quite able to reconcile his clashing desires. To be across the encampment inside that corner canvas shelter, where the fallen princess slept, or to be there in the darkness, on guard amongst a clan of untrustworthy scoundrels. Torn, he sat undecided, lost in swirling thoughts.

He should not have come. Why had he not restrained himself when the impulse first occurred to the prince? Deep down, he knew what would happen, knew how difficult this would be for him, how much indulging himself would complicate matters. Now it was far too late and he wasn't certain he could do what needed to be done when the time came.

This thief had stolen his heart. There was no way to ignore it anymore. He could not. Would not. What was worse was she did not act overly concerned by what she had done. Did she not realize what she cost him? The dilemma she had forced upon him? Perhaps it wasn't apparent to her. Perhaps this was all fun and games to the outlaw. A simple ploy to wile away her time. A distraction. A flirtation.

Well, if that were the case, he would need to straighten her out. Yes. That was exactly what he needed to do.

Before he could think better of his riled state, Prince James had already risen. Unconsciously, one hand gripped the scabbard at his belt, as if prepared for battle, when he made his way across the shadowed distance. At the entrance to her shelter, lapel aside, he was just about to stride inside when something stopped him in his tracks.

On the other end of the encampment, shrouded by inky darkness beneath an arch for the protected opening of the cove, mass movement caught his attention. The pattern of hooves scraping against stone. The rustle of armor. The hushed commotion of a caravan. From so far, he could not distinguish coalesced shapes from the black of night, but other senses could be relied on, and he wasn't about to take the chance.

Ducking inside, intentions rerouted, he crossed to her cot, dousing her alit lantern, and rolled her by the shoulder onto her back to face him. A hand clasped over her mouth to smother her scream as she jolted into awareness, emerald eyes wide and bright in the shadows of the tent, illuminated only by silvery moonlight. The glint of her dagger pulling from the pad of a pillow beneath her, precaution pressing it to his throat, made him still until recognition smoothed her features. Leant close, he touched a finger to his lips in command for silence before he drew away.

As she thrust off the cot onto her feet, gathering the unlaced folds of her gown as it tried to slip down, Snow shot him an inquisitive look. To which he only tapped at his ear in plea to listen and twisted around, snatching up her duffel, hooking it over his shoulder, pushing her discarded riding cloak at her chest. She took the hint quickly, familiar with such urgency in his demeanor, and fastened herself up as she followed him from the tent, but not before scrabbling for the stack of research buried in her tomes, rolling it all up, and stuffing it down the cleavage of her garment.

The pair were barely out in the sultry night air before a shrill chime blared through the encampment, followed by yells and cries of alert, gypsies flooding from their shelters as a unit of paladins descended on the cove.

Breaking into a sprint, he headed for his steed under the black tupelos, Snow close on his heels, only to be cut off by a swarm of paladins clad in darkened armor, red spider of an insignia marking them as foreign, scythes and swords drawn. Tossing her satchel at the outlaw, he met the first advance with a parry of sword, shoving into the core to keep them occupied enough for Snow to slip by. In his periphery, he was aware of her progress, fetching his stallion, dispatching of a lone paladin who got in her way, but his focus never wavered from his struggle.

Horse untied, hand on horn, she had just thrown her satchel into a saddlebag when she spotted Little Lena cornered on the other side of the black tupelo nest. Although her impatience drove her to move on, with the child about to be captured, she could not in good conscience opt from intervening.

The pair of paladins had her backed against stone. One closest was reaching for Lena while the second hung back, sidestepping to the right, blocking her view of the little girl. Her next move was instinct and instantaneous.

Throwing a dagger, she embedded it in his back, slipping her foot from the stirrup, rushing forward as he fell, and whipped it free on her way past, drawing out another from a strap at her thigh. Her dash rounded from the left. Crossing both daggers over her head, she stepped in front of the next one, catching the downswing of his blade in the apex of her daggers. Pivoting onto one heel, a kick to his solar plexus propelled him away.

"Snow!" little girl called, whirling her around in time to deflect a third.

When the second resurged, she spun, slashing one short blade across his throat, protected from armor enough to prevent it being fatal but not enough to keep him from bruising so severely he reared back to choke for breath. Using the opportunity, she hit her hilt to the crown of his helmet, knocking it off and forcing him bent, straight into a knee. Bone met temple. Unconscious, he collapsed.

The outlaw was left with only one near enough to be a problem. And, as it turned out, he wouldn't be, since an iron skillet landed atop his head from behind before the paladin could advance. He dropped and Snow caught sight of Calamity Carl.

"Much thanks," was his gruff address before he swept his daughter away.

Slipping one dagger into a strap, she swiveled, fingers between her teeth to whistle for the prince's waiting warhorse.

Once his attackers were taken care of, James made haste to her at the edge of camp, levering up behind her in the saddle without pause. Spurring into motion, she headed for a sliver passage in the cliffs, one he had noted earlier and assumed correctly the reason she chose a dwelling positioned so.

In the middle of such a hectic fray, it wasn't a difficult feat to disappear in the fringes. Especially not as gypsies scattered, escaping through various nooks and traps in the cove they had made their home and knew so well, while paladins flurried to round each up. Unfortunately, another unit of the hunters had been assigned to surround Sídhe's cliffs, creating a perimeter of tactical contingency, and neither Snow nor Charming had mind to notice their trail until they were ambushed.

The first skidded into their galloping path with a crossbow aimed ahead. Before given the chance to avert, an arrow glanced Snow's shoulder, impact of the graze twisting her sideways in the saddle. She would have gone down then, if not for the prince, whose arms moved to lock around her form, snatching the dropped reins and veering the stallion into a diagonal leap between ancient oaks, hooves pounding over spongy underbrush.

Acrid scent of blood hit the air, gushing to her wrist, slicking her grip on his thigh. This seemed to be some sort of trigger for the enveloping wildlands around. Though a trio of steeds in pursuit echoed behind them, gaining ground pace by pace, a sudden pitch of aggrieved hollers interceded the chase.

Less than a heartbeat later, his stallion halted abruptly, rearing high on hindquarters with a violent buck. Perhaps they would have clung on until the spooked beast righted were it not for the swooping arc of a redwood branch, which struck Snow in the chest, sending both her and the prince sailing.

"_The vines_!" a paladin yelled, desperation and panic dripping from his rasped voice.

Though she rolled a landing to avoid injury, marble hilt slipping from numb fingers, she wasn't quick enough to get out of the way of flailing hooves. Luckily, just as another ragged scream reverberated through the trees, a coiling vine nabbed the thrashing animal by flank, scooping it off the ground before it could trample the fallen princess, only to let go a moment later, leaving the startled stallion to crash through the thicket, fleeing like any smart creature would do.

"Come back!" she cried in helpless frustration, watching the stallion disappear, even as she scrambled backwards in moss and soil to escape the undulating snakelike approach of a vickory vine slithering for her ankles. This unusual treachery was merely one of many deadly aberrations within the land of Sídhe. Thus far, she had managed to avoid it and was none too happy to find herself deep in a burrow. "Worthless royal warhorse."

Thrown from the saddle, Prince James had been flung into a different direction, directly into the path of oncoming paladins, who were having trouble getting control of their stricken steeds. A rock caught him on the crown at the fall, bringing dizzy vertigo, so he hadn't the most steady stance when he clambered up to confront their pursuers.

While he was busy wielding a sword, dealing with what few hunters weren't diverted by the burrow wreaking havoc, Snow suffered issues of her own. Minor issues, mind you. But the insidious vines had gotten ahold of her, first only by foot, sharp thorns pricking at her bare feet, because she hadn't had time to pull on her boots. Flipped on her stomach, she strained the length of herself as far as possible, stretching for the dropped dagger that lay just out of reach. When the vines ripped her away, scraping her up against forest floor, she scrounged under her gown for its twin, still strapped. As soon as she had her fingers wrapped around the hilt, another vine circled her wrist, wrenching her up into the air by an arm and a leg. Thorns pierced too close to vital veins.

An indignant shriek grabbed the distracted prince's attention. Such a slip earned him another notch on the crown. To which he swiftly parried, running his adversary through with his blade, after giving an elbow to the chin and deflecting a second blow.

"Snow!" he called, a very real fear lacing his roughened voice as he rounded her way. But the sight he was met with made him falter. "Oh."

"Don't you dare laugh," she warned, promise of pain in her tone and jut of her chin.

Wisely, he didn't dare laugh at her predicament. However, he wasn't skilled enough to stifle the crooked grin which tugged at his mouth as he gravitated to her. "I believe I have seen this lovely vision before."

The outlaw rolled her eyes, knowing enough to hold her body perfectly frozen in order to keep from provoking the slippery temperamental plants again. "Just cut me free."

"My pleasure," he drawled, rotating his wrist to arc his sword for momentum.

Tangled up in a dangerous net of vickory vines, mighty self-reliant renegade known as Snow White remained imprisoned until the noble prince could come to her aid. And, _boy_, was he loving it. But as the adrenaline died down, and violence distanced, vickory vines began to return to abeyance. They gave only minimal retribution as he proceeded to cut her free of their weedy confines.

Once she was untangled, and dropped unceremoniously to the soil, he assisted her up onto her feet, glancing confoundedly at his surroundings. "Where is my steed?"

Downturned to brush herself off, she replied, "Gone." And added as an afterthought, "Not very observant, Charming."

"Beg your pardon," he quipped, brow furrowed above a clouded gaze as he scanned the shadows enveloping the two, rubbing absently at the back of his head, not paying enough attention to be relieved to feel no blood. "Not as an excuse, mind you, but I think I may be concussed."

Rather than caress the throbbing wounds she was left with herself, Snow moved in close to peruse his crown, prodding fingers gentle and competent, searching for fractures. "Mm," she hummed, mood light without any serious worry. "Crippled too."

"Come again?"

"You don't think I see you favoring your right leg?"

Glancing down, all he said was, "Oh." What with all his overly intense concern for _her_, he hadn't even noticed how raw his thigh felt. Hadn't paid mind to the gash at his hip, slowly seeping blood. "It's not bad, I don't think."

"Neither do I." Pulling away, she folded her arms in a protective embrace and nodded off towards the inky abyss of distance. "Tracks say your stallion went _that_ way. If we chase him down, we might have a chance of getting out of this territory intact."

The prince nodded, paled features drawn. "He wouldn't have gone far without me."

"Besides, we should probably gain ground. More of these guys will doubtless catch up soon to investigate their missing ranks." Pausing briefly, she swallowed a shaky breath, wet her red lips, and shifted narrowed eyes back to him. "Think you can manage?"

"Do I have a choice?" he retorted, already sheathing his sword, headed for the correct direction of shadowy badlands.

Grimly, quietly, as of yet unmoved behind him, she answered, "No."

On the move, their trek kept at a languid pace, mostly to accommodate his wound, but also because it was tricky making out the hoof tracks in such smothering darkness. Canopy of the forest blotted out the moon as if it never existed. Owls made murmurings. Vines coiled high overhead. The muted cacophony of Treacherous Pass only pronounced how crackling the tension rode, how loud everything which was left unsaid resounded between haggard Snow and Charming.

"Do you ever consider the future?"

Faltering footfalls, she flipped tousled curls from her face to level him with a hot look. "Excuse me?"

"Please don't get defensive," he implored, concentrating on his progress over uneven ground to avoid the emotional minefield of her startled stare. "I'm not trying to be cruel. Only curious." He faltered then as well, angling to face her, blocking her path. "Do you ever wonder on it?"

Chin lifted, she schooled her features smooth, gazes locked. "No need to hedge about. Ask what you really want to ask me, Charming."

Pinned in her guarded sights, he couldn't help but brave to obey, bright blue eyes not hiding all the silly notions swirling around his mind, all the distant desires. "Do you ever consider a family?"

Her retort was sharp and sudden. "I have no family anymore."

His was tentative but determined. "You could create another."

"You mean find myself a husband? Breed babies?" she remarked, her mockery of such a possibility both sweet and bitter at once, leaving an aching aftertaste. Scrubbing a hand over her face as she gave him a derisive bark of laughter, she averted her focus off towards inoffensive shadows. "Oh, Charming. Even if such things were my fate, which obviously they are not, I wouldn't make a good wife, a good mother. I am simply not built for it."

"Of course you will." Discord came swift and sure before he could catch his tongue. Once he had started, he could do nothing but follow it through, stepping closer to take her by the arms and force her focus back to him, where she could not hide the honesty in her eyes under veils of sardonic offense. "Where else do you think your compassion comes from if not from such potential? It comes from your maternal instincts."

Snow made an incredulous expression. "What compassion?"

Ignoring her deflection, he continued, "You will be a great mother, Snow. A fierce one, granted, but certainly a great one as well." A corner of his mouth quirked up with humor. "Perhaps it will be your ferocity which will make you so great." One hand wandered up from her arm, rising past where her cloak separated skin to skin contact, and rested with confidence at the porcelain curve of her neck, long fingers tunneling lightly in her mane. "And as for whichever remarkable man manages to arrest you to him for life, he will have my most heartfelt sympathy . . . along with my undying admiration."

As if his words had power to physically wound her, she tore herself ever so slowly from his grasp, eyes screwing shut, lips pursed with blame. "Why are you doing this? Saying these things to me? When you _know_ the path my life will take as surely as I do. Nowhere will there be time for those sorts of complications."

Just like that, absorbing the sight of her crystalline pain, a festering wound she kept buried beneath layers of high spirits and snarky wit, Prince James had never felt more helpless against circumstance. He had never felt such . . . _heartbreak_. "I say these things because they are truth, Snow, because I _believe_ you can have a happy ending."

"Happy endings are merely tales which have yet to complete themselves," she primly informed him, eyes fluttering open to fix on his own, eyebrows arched. There was earnest honesty in her gaze. She truly believed what she spoke of. But he could also see longing. She might believe it, but she didn't want to, and that was all he needed to know.

The prince snaked out a hand, latched onto her wrist when she lifted it to tuck errant curls behind her ear, and used the hold to draw her back to him, surprise his advantage, allowing her body's acquiesce before her will could interfere. "So you do not believe _I_ will have a fulfilling end?"

"Of course you will," she countered, eyeing him askance, rightfully wary of his change in demeanor. "But you and I lead two very opposing lives."

After only a slight hesitation, his resolve at the new knowledge solidifying indecision, he posed the pivotal question, "What if my happiness now hinges on yours?"

"Then you are sorely mistaken," she volleyed, ripping again from his grasp, so much harsher this time, lashing out at the false promise of what she wished she didn't want. Without waiting for more, she stormed off into the thicket, her strides brisk with angered vulnerability.

Responding in kind to her zeal, he raced after her as best he could. "Snow. _Wait_."

"Why?" she snapped, whirling sharply around, making him skid to a haphazard halt.

"What do you mean _why_? You know why. I know you're in a hurry but you cannot just run away from this discussion." And as she scoffed her disagreement, resuming her pace, he pointed out, "You brought this on yourself, you know."

"How do you misinterpret that?"

"How else is a man supposed to react when a beautiful, intelligent, brave, witty, kind, charismatic woman looks at him the way you do me?" he challenged, screwing her face into a frown. "If you didn't wish me to fall for you, perhaps you should not have tempted me with all those flirty comments or that promising smile of yours. Not to mention all the teasing touches."

"Teasing? Promising? Flirty?" she echoed with arch indigence, furious pace unfaltering as her words flowed feverishly. "Why, you _prince_, you have a lot of nerve. Did it ever once occur to you that you might be reading more into our interactions than was warranted?"

"Yes. About a thousand times over. I have since come to the conclusion that I am not."

Snow shot him a bothered sidelong glance. "Well, try coming to a new conclusion."

A chuckle vibrated in his chest, a mixture of genuine amusement and wry remorse, when he reached for her then, only to have her huffily evade. "Am I speaking Trollish?"

"Might as well be," she muttered, her countenance nowhere near ladylike gracious.

He ignored her snide interjection. "I fear it is too late for a new conclusion. My path is set in stone. Like you believe yours. Yet my heart . . ."

"_Do not _finish that sentence!" she forbade, spinning again to hold out a severe finger, bringing him up short. Then, when he froze under her focus, dreamy cerulean eyes fixed, searing her from the inside out, she softened into disquiet with a disheartened exhale. "Explain, sweet prince, what is it you want from me?"

James frowned. "Precisely?"

However, she never allowed him the chance to describe his answer. "Because all _I_ am interested in is my paradise."

"Your what?"

"My paradise," she repeated shortly, waving a vague gesture at the trees around them. "My safe haven. It's what I have been working towards all this time. _All_ I want is to gather enough resources to get as far away from this realm as possible. So I can be free."

This not quite news, of all things, angered him. "So, what?" he demanded, his manner brusque for the first time since their impromptu argument began. "You are just going to abandon your kingdom? Leave it in the hands of a tyrannical sorceress?"

Such a jab hit her harder than he had expected. In true Snow fashion, she swallowed her upset to bring forth an imperiously cold shield. "It's not mine anymore. It never was."

"You know that is untrue."

Leveling him with a chilling look, she took one measured step backward and breathed in deep for her wavering composure before she spun to walk away. "I am not doing this."

All she got was three paces, however, when he darted forward and clasped an arm, twirling her right back to him. Passion alighted the prince at such stubborn denial. "Where is the girl I once knew? You tell me that." As she struggled to break free, he held onto her with a slight shake to still the beauty. "Snow, answer me."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes. You do."

"No."

"The girl that climbed the most hazardous willow peak of Sídhe's mountain," he said, merciless against her savage resistance, "a venture no grown man would have taken on, simply to prove to her father, at the tender age of ten, she could be as glorious a ruler as any firstborn king. I _remember_ her. Where has that girl gone?"

All that Snow could give him in response was a painfully empty look. Quiet, serious, she told him, "That girl is dead and gone. I buried her a long time ago."

"No," he began.

But she wouldn't permit it, "Her foolishness would have gotten me killed, Charming."

Peering into her shuttered emerald eyes, studying all but her soul, he had to disagree. "No, Snow. She's not gone. She's right here in front of me. She is what has kept you alive. So, what is it you are afraid of? Is it truly the queen?"

"I do not fear that usurper!" she snapped. Simply because she was realistic concerning her situation didn't mean she feared the queen. That evil witch could not intimidate her. She wasn't a child any longer. But there was a fine line between fear and fated loss.

James bent at the knee, bringing their heights even, getting a better perspective. Lowering his voice, softening it, he persisted, "Then what do you fear, Snow? Why do you run when I know everything in you must be dying to stand and fight?"

Instead of answering him, she pulled from his slackened grasp and turned her back. She was walking away again. But his next words stopped her cold.

"I climbed that willow peak with you, Snow."

After a long hesitation, she angled back, not all the way, but slightly, and fixed a gaze of neutrality on the shadowed oaks. "Why?"

"I couldn't let you do it alone."

Though her eyes glossed wet, she still refused to move. Again, she asked, "Why?"

He couldn't stay away any longer, wasn't strong enough to resist that innate pull, which had him gravitating towards her once more, slowly but surely coming up so close, close enough to kiss. Careful to not spook the wounded wild animal, he lifted itchy hands and slipped them over the curves of her face, delving into dark locks, pushing them back, urging for her tremulous attention. Then he confessed, "I wanted to be there. With you."

"Charming," she muttered in a rueful undertone, shining eyes still unbearably averted, letting a soft sigh escape parted lips. When he began to lean in that last separating space, however, she shifted within the cradle of his hands, saying sadly, "Please. Do not begin something you cannot finish."

He froze in his tracks, her subdued plea waking a familiar ache inside of him, a pang of longing and regret and unadulterated terror. Except after sorting through such a snarl, nothing but unwarranted hope remained. Offering the beauty a small but unbridled grin, he furled his fingers in her hair, fisting a handhold, and pulling her up against his chest for a breathless, hungry, eager, steamy kiss.

Something he had been thinking of, craving for, since the outlawed princess first hit him in the chin with a rock.

It wasn't until he was sliding one hand back down along the curvature of her shoulder that he realized his fingers were slick with blood. Pushing her cloak aside, he shifted from her deliciously responsive mouth, inspecting the bleeding arrow wound dug in her bicep.

Eyelids heavy and hooded with the sudden spark of unbanked desire, Snow swatted his prodding grasp away. "It's fine," she insisted, not even caring how breathy or rasped her voice sounded now. "Charming, it's fine." And to prove such a statement, she wrapped deceptively delicate fingers around his wrists, languidly guiding his touch up to the base of her throat, where it met with the fasten of her cloak.

Locked gazes never wavered as spools of the garment fell away.

After a brief but suffocating moment of hesitation, swallowing as he glanced over her, Prince James furled hands into fists for control, stepping aside, trying to turn. "We should keep moving."

"We should," she agreed, far too easily. But all it took was a decided tug on his arm before he could make it fully out of reach and he was spinning right back to her in a rush of resurging fervor.

As he enveloped her, every last shred of distance between their bodies vanquished, strong arms snaked around an arched torso, even as she reached up to wind her own at his neck, fingertips digging into corded muscle of his shoulders, urging him closer than was physically possible, and their mouths collided again. Heat rippled like liquid fire across nerve endings. Electric sensations spindled outward. Overcome, he and she both buckled at the same time, dropping onto their knees together in the fallen foliage.

Passion loosed from suppression, clouded thought processes, inhibition bled into reckless abandon, restraint into urgency.

From one movement to another, a charged current carried them onward, so much further than was wise given every variable of such a complicated equation. But in their exulted haze, neither could summon concern to care. Not enough to affect an outcome. Ever if either were warned they would end up making love, or more like mating on the forest floor of Treacherous Pass, all desperate want and scorching fire, while stranded in the midst of night, after evading capture from a foreign paladin troop, each would have insisted their foreteller be checked in the head.

Yet here they were.

Rolling without telegraph, Snow settled astride his waist, pinning him when he tried rising to reclaim her swollen lips, and offered the prince a smile that verged on evil smirk in consolation. Head canted to sway tousled ebony locks over a shoulder, tips tickling at his exposed flesh, she pressed into a caress at the column of her neck. As she seized the liberty of divesting him of his vest and tunic, he distracted her with wandering hands, making her writhe in his hold.

Emerald eyes shining bright in darkness, he had never seen her so light of heart or delirious of mind, all her measured guard thoroughly melted for however long he could make this glorious moment of freedom last. To see her in such a way relaxed something taut and aggrieved burrowed inside his chest.

Long fingers splayed, he spanned the rhythmic arc of her ribcage, absorbing her every rise and fall of quickened breath, her warmth burning him through the coarse fabric of her gown. Laces still unbound from her sleep, it draped precariously off the curves of her, barely hugging body at all. Heedless drags of exploring palms, fingers, teeth had the attire threatening to leave her revealed.

"_Snow_," he uttered, a low groan vibrating in his throat at the sheer bliss of his iniquity.

Rejoinder more automatic wit than real quip, she murmured, "That's my name."

If he hadn't been so consumed with his lust, with avid sensations breaking him apart, he would have had to stop for laughter. But she was skimming soft fevered lips so lightly over his skin, it could have been a dream, mapping his muscled contours with a focused patience he couldn't currently comprehend, and there was simply too much heady heat, too much primal rapture to spare room for amusement.

Yearning for more, he lifted almost upright to get closer, and she slid lower in turn, aligning the junctions of their hips, casing him between her thighs. When she moved, rotating her hips agonizingly against him, a calculated gesture, he fisted hold in her locks and bent her neck back to expose the tender spot of her larynx to coaxing ministrations, resisting the basic impulse of thrusting at her unspoken invitation. More the denial than the diversion made shivers erupt through her body. In extension, her vibrations whittled his newly salvaged willpower.

Snow allowed him no respite. Raking both hands into his fair cropped hair to clutch, he was torn from her pulse point with a lush shudder, tilted up to meet her mouth for an open kiss. Sliding her velvety tongue inside earned another pained groan. Grasp digging in the excess material piled at her thighs, he fell back again, weakened by the struggle of biting down on all his rougher urgent urges, concentrated instead on relishing her lead.

Drawing in a bracing breath, he submitted to relative stillness as her lips strayed along the shape of his jawline, across his quavering Adam's apple, over a tautened collarbone, and smooth fingertips pressed forcefully into lower regions of his abdominal muscles, reminiscent of kneading dough, a pattern synced with the wavelike rhythm her body thrived above his own.

Only permitting himself mild privilege, James stroked worshipping hands up along the curved expanse of her backside, grazing jutted shoulder blades, playing with mussed ebony curls. The live wire reaction to her proximity faded in intensity, if only for a beat, making space for remembered emotional disquiet, sweetening the feel of Snow White.

"How very willing you are, Charming." Grin felt against his shoulder as she explored for herself, rich gaiety lilted her whispering voice, both playful and primitively thrilled. Breathtaking was a word for her here. "Do you always oblige so commendably to harlots who wish to ravish you?"

Pulled from his reverie, he dragged his grasp down her spine to cinch at flared hips, stilling her flutter, as a fond chuckle reverberated through his chest into hers. Abrupt in his motions, alarmed by the unshakable bloom of devotion which rooted out of the blue, he pivoted from beneath her, reversing their positions with a dizzying flip, sprawling her onto her back to press the impish beauty into foamy earth and steal her chiming breath with a sudden searing kiss.

"James," she exclaimed, voice insubstantial with soft surprise and simmering pleasure, muffled by his demanding mouth. Finally, he had gotten her to say his name. But he was more moved by the tremulous sound of her tone, her boldness stolen, replaced by hidden sentiment come to light.

Hearing it caused him to draw up, a need to seize such a rare opportunity, study her preoccupied features. Long legs spread instinctively in their new posture, grazing along his flanks, heels coiling behind his knees, encouraging him closer. He propped himself on an elbow, pad of his thumb tracing patterns into her temple, her cheek, her pouted lips, letting his fierce affection melt into her, witnessing how very much she needed it so.

Eyelashes fluttered shut and motions stilled for a savoring moment in response. Momentarily sobered from such a sight, he watched her bask in his attention, mesmerized by her sense of disbelief or wonder or whatever it was about their connection that held her captivated despite herself.

Then she noticed his fixation and immediately sought to distract him from what were surely dangerous thoughts. Wetting her lips, she shifted strategically underneath him, stirring an already built pressure. Nimble fingers danced down to the tie of his trousers. Hips reeled against his own, searchingly, impatiently, insistently, until his modulated cap of control shattered.

At the crushing wave of carnal vehemence, they were swept into a frenzy.

During a string of sloppy kisses, her skirt got hiked high over thighs, bodice left alone, as she slipped a hand below his waistband and grasped his straining erection with a light feathery touch that made his hips lurch in shock. Panting for air, she arched from ground, arm hooked around his neck for leverage, while they fumbled distractedly together with clasps and laces, emitting frustrated and eager noises between gasps of strangled laughs, ridding all of their barriers.

When he first buried himself inside of her, dilated eyes watching her red lips fall apart in a silent cry, he was startled to find her pained. The stark surprise shaping her features was quite unique. As he comprehended it, James went pale with horror. "Oh, Snow."

"Mm," she hummed, trying to muster composure through her devouring experience, but her voice was all wrong and her expression couldn't keep from twisting into what was both intense discomfort and inexplicable intrigue. Biting into her lower lip, she gazed up at him with wide emerald eyes, ebony lashes batting quicker than her breath came.

Why had he not considered, by giving into such a transgression, he would be stealing the very last fragment of her innocence? Ignoring the ferocity of his baser needs, he held himself frozen as best was possible, gritting teeth against suffering as her inner muscles fluttered around him. "Why did you not warn me?"

"Why did you not assume?" she volleyed, not quite as tartly as usual, eyes falling shut, head leaning back into crisp foliage, exposing the column of her throat. To which he hung his own head over and pressed his mouth lightly to. While she wavered dazedly between warring frissons, he found himself in the clutches of indecision, his want versus his duty like her pain versus her promise of pleasure she could feel on the horizon.

Burying his drawn face in the nest of her tresses, mildly, he accused, "You purposely misled me, Snow."

"How so?" she challenged, fingers grazing up his bare back, enjoying the pull and push of his muscles and tendons. Cheeks flushed, mouth pouted, eyes darkened, she shifted in experiment beneath the weight of him, shuddering almost violently at the triggered ripple which arced between them. Her rasped hum echoed his groan of protest.

Transferring support to one arm, he brought a freed hand to her stomach, stilling her. But when he tried to pull away, going against every amorous cell of his being to do just so, he found her lean legs locked stubbornly around him, preventing his conflicted retreat.

"Don't you dare stop now."

The prince couldn't fathom how such a brash formidable woman could have moments of such fragile virtue, of vulnerable truth, or how he could guard against the affects.

Screwing his eyes closed, jaw clenched in restraint, he sunk down to a wriggling Snow. Simultaneous exhales of something similar to relief mingled. Resting his brow onto hers, he furled fingers into soil on either side of the restless beauty and struggled for a smooth careful staccato of motion, one influenced by every reactionary shift and flinch and arch of her body, by every soft pant and sharp gasp and strangled mewl of her voice. Even once she began meeting his hips thrust for thrust, crescent nails gripping viciously at his sides, he didn't intend to let his discipline lax, but her embrace was awakening every synapse, creating a symphony of sensations which refused to be denied.

Pulsing stimulation drove them into a hazy need that sizzled, both sensory receptors and emotional filters flooded with input, left deliciously overwrought.

Meanwhile, neither but vaguely registered the dusky lightening of the black forest all around them as a moon fell and a sun ascended into the sky, chasing stars away.

By the time the pair eventually pushed each other over the virtual cliff, peak reached, dawn had come and the animals of the forest were stirring quite noisily, especially aves. They split apart in their sated exhaustion, landing side by side in moss, a few limbs still tangled lazily together, and worked on catching their breaths as the birds sang up above. Helpless to her afterglow, sleep captured Snow like the undercurrent of an ocean, and for a long while, all he could do was watch her fall. But then the chill of morning air brought goosebumps to her exposed flesh, urging him to move from his stupor, so James pushed himself upright, forcing his weary body into action until he located her discarded cloak and returned to her side, blanketing her beneath it.

Perhaps because a faint sense of dread dripped like ice water from a well deep down somewhere within, James took care to sidle close, curving a strong arm around her midriff to gently corral her sleeping feminine form into him, burrowing his nose in messy tresses at the curve of her neck, inhaling the striking aroma of honeysuckle and cinnamon. Settling into his thoughts, he could not seem to name that dread, could not ignore what made him feel as if this wondrous contentment she had left him with would be fleeting.

Thick lashes rested over silky alabaster skin. A dark halo of ebony curls wreathed her uncharacteristically peaceful features. Red lips pursed ever so slightly apart.

He used the quiet moment to study her closely, ensure every facet of the beauty was imprinted forever in his memory, wishing it wouldn't prove necessary. Admittedly, it held some appeal, her world so separate from his own. Lost in wilderness, she seemed to be in her element. She was _free_ out here, her fire untempered by society, her spirit uninfected by fear of her false queen. An inkling told the prince he would hate to see her chained. Could he do that? All there was to risk, he couldn't truly drag her into the line of fire simply because he cared for the banished princess. Could he? And then to think of the consequences for his own kingdom. Simply because he never wanted to let her go again.

Selfish. Far too selfish, he felt since Snow White had been returned to the prince.

Turmoil thriving still, he slipped off into sleep beside her, clinging even in dreams. Hours later, he surfaced with a jolt, reaching for his scabbard as honed instinct informed him of alarm but not the source. Scanning his surroundings, he saw no one, listened close for signs of approach, heard nothing but the aves, before he released his grasp with a sigh.

Eventually, he realized what woke him was Snow stirring in his arms, hidden below her riding cloak. He waited patiently, golden streams of midday bathing her in sunlight, until the depth of her breathing lessened, sleepy murmurings growing more intelligible. The smile she greeted him with when she fully woke brimmed with purring pleasure, bright eyes full of sin, expression clouded but already verging on playful.

"Still here, I see."

That raised his brow. "Was I supposed to leave you? All alone and defenseless?"

Gazing darting skyward as she rolled onto her back, Snow said, "If you liked. I guess you haven't found your runaway steed."

He let fingers drift through her curls, grinning at her muffled yawn, and resolve made him steel to ask, "Where do you think you will go? Now that your camp has been taken."

The flippant shrug of slender shoulders he got in answer did nothing to reassure him. "Somewhere else. Haven't considered it yet." Turning her head to him then, she flashed a mocking smile and quipped, "Why? Do you have suggestions, Charming?"

"You could always—"

"No," she cut him off, recognizing his tone, her sudden force silencing him on reflex. Entire countenance shifted, hardened, and all of her defenses slammed back into place, shutting him out in the cold with a violent shove. Swinging upright, she finished, "I can't."

"Snow," he coaxed, even though he knew it was futile, leaning back on his elbows as she gave him her now rigid back. "It may not have to be this way."

Not even validating that with a reply, she started dressing in jagged movements, righting her traveler's gown, lacing up the bindings tighter than she normally would in her crystallized upset, combing her tousled mane into the confines of a ribbon to keep from her face. It was only when she pivoted onto her knees, yanking her cloak lapel out from under him to corral around her tensed shoulders, that she spoke again.

"Go back to your betrothed. Go home to your palace." For a brief moment, she glanced back at him, and their eyes locked. An intense flare of data exchanged. "Forget about me. This is never going to happen."

Not so bothered as he would have been a day or so ago, James skated knuckles gently down the contours of her spine, just narrowly within his reach, lips pressed, and took it as a good sign when she didn't jump away. "It has happened, Snow. It _is_ happening."

The mockery in her next smile wasn't _supposed_ to be self-directed. "Charming—"

He knew her argument already, rose to bring himself beside her, shoulders aligned, and curved his touch up to the nape of her neck, making her look his way, whether or not she was willing. Bright blue eyes pierced her grayed cast. "You can't run from this."

"Yes, I can." Lashes lowered, gaze straying to the space between them, mouth shaped with resigned sadness, bitter determination, frightened refusal. "I have to."

For it was no ordinary crime which chased Snow White from her rightful kingdom, and if she were to pursue this link between her and the prince, she would surely doom him to her fate. But he cared not. Prince Charming would not let her go without a fight. He _could_ not. Such an action might cost a piece of his soul.

* * *

><p><em>TBC<em>


	6. Ignite The Stars

**.**

_"Ignite The Stars"_

"_The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins. But in the heart of its strength lies weakness. One lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is much more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars."_

: : :_  
><em>

The main drag of Storybrooke consisted of precisely four rows of quaint businesses owned privately and run personally, lonely sidewalks and mostly unused parking meters, warm sunshine, sparse planted birch trees, and the ticking clock tower in the very center. That very evening, however, nightfall brought in a biting chill and a gossamer blanket of freshly fallen snow. Golden rope lights were strung along the streets, windows frosted, mistletoe dangling from streetlamps, bells chimed festively, and townsfolk scurried past one another, all bundled up in coats, gloves, hats, and scarves, a distinct hum of goodwill in the nippy air. Lots of folks were out and about tonight. More so than usual.

Including Mary Margaret.

The poised schoolteacher had a feeling this was a season she should really be enjoying. Did she not love herself a white Christmas? What was there to dislike? Snowmen perched in powdery front lawns. Colored lights twined along picket fences. Bows pressed to every available surface. Crackling fires. Wreaths on doors. Jingling bells. Good spirits. This was a time for companionship, for appreciating the simple wonders of life, and yet she had never felt as isolated as she did now. As bereft. Though she knew that wasn't fair to feel, because she had Emma, and she had Henry, and she had her health, but it just _was_.

Moving slowly, languidly, she weaved herself through the current of pedestrians, detached from their hurried bustles, trying to finish up her Christmas shopping before all her favorite shops closed for the night. It shouldn't be too difficult, really, since she didn't have many people to gift.

Just coming from the coffeehouse, cup of cocoa in hand, she was thinking of heading into the bookstore when, across the street, she spotted the source of her current disquiet. Faltering in pace, she slipped her free hand into the pocket of her coat and tried to pull herself away, but it was like passing a wreck. Pausing beside the jeweler's place, he must have felt her gaze, because he shifted, and bright blue eyes connected with hers.

_Nothing special_, she told herself, more harshly than firmly as she'd intended, _just your friend David Nolan, strolling with his wife_. But the agonized pang like a blade sliding into her chest to steal her breath belied her resolve. If she wasn't so very blinded by her own forsaken turmoil, she might have taken comfort in the fact that the man across the way appeared just as frozen as she was, just as stricken.

With the happy blonde hooked on his arm, chattering away in oblivion as she admired sparkling gems in a window display, he only had eyes for Mary Margaret.

But her stark pain, her stinging regret, her despaired longing forced her to escape. Discovering his pull just as intense as ever left her smarting as she turned the next corner, dumping her steaming drink into a passing bin untouched, feeling the itch between her shoulder blades, letting her know he watched her retreat like a wounded coward of a girl. Which was exactly what she was now. Right?

With this inexplicable torment, she couldn't afford to have pride.

As her feet propelled her forward down the sidewalks, faster and faster, until she went beyond brisk into frantic, others and their unburdened merry animation surrounding her, while she felt as if she couldn't breathe. Literally _couldn't breathe_.

_I'm choosing you_, his husky voice echoed in her memory, so full of conviction, so full of affection, so full of devotion, which had not so secretly elated her at the time, now only mocked the woman. It couldn't have lasted. She should have known better. _I remember_. Why those words sparked a thrill of joy in her at first, she couldn't quite explain. After all, as she so soon realized, it wasn't _her_ he remembered loving. How could it have been? There was no history between them. He never belonged to her. She knew the truth. Despite every fiber of her traitorous being trying to sway her otherwise. _I was honest when I told you I was trapped. I can't be a new man, Mary. The one I was before, he made choices I can't take back, responsibilities I can't walk away from, promises I have to uphold. Please. Don't cry. I never meant to hurt you._

"Yet you always do," she murmured softly, her breath puffing visibly into the cold air wrapped like a punishing vice around her slender form, quivering ever so slightly.

He was doing the right thing. The honorable thing. This was a truth she knew well. But she was having a little trouble convincing herself of it. Rational knowledge had no influence on what the heart wanted, what the soul craved, and that was never to change. Such cold hard facts were no comfort to her haunted thoughts or her roiling feelings of incredible loss, which didn't make sense, because you cannot lose something you never truly had.

Not to mention her endless fretting over a regrettable lapse in judgment regarding an ill-advised one night stand in her moment of weakness. She had thought a warm bed and an attentive companion would make her feel a little less abandoned. It didn't. It only left her with an added sense of damage. Under a light coating of personal shame. But a person could not be relied upon to make smart decisions while her heart was busy breaking into a thousand bitty jagged pieces.

So, if finding someone else couldn't soothe her, and denial hadn't yet proved viable, what was she to do? Distraction might be all she had. But that was impossible so long as her blight himself refused to give her the distance she so desperately needed. Chasing her down the snowy streets every time she looked like she might cry wasn't going to work.

"Where are you going?" he asked, jogging up beside her as she practically sprinted her way down the crowded street.

Jolting in surprise, Mary shot him a sharp sidelong glance before fixing her attention steadfastly ahead of her, arms wrapped around herself for warmth. "Home."

"Weren't you in the middle of something?"

"Yes, well, I don't feel like shopping anymore."

"Mary—"

When her furious pace halted abruptly, making him backpedal to keep from colliding, she silenced him. Still not looking his direction, she swallowed, drew in a frigid breath, shoved her hands into her pockets, shoulders hunched. When she spoke next, her voice had softened into something sad and weary. "Just leave me alone, David."

This time, when she walked away, he didn't follow. But she could feel him staring after her like a palpable weight pressing into her skin, into her core, until her eyes pricked and her throat clogged with emotion she'd sworn she wouldn't give into again.

Amidst all of this winter wonderland cheer, she had to wonder, could people actually hear the beat of broken hearts?

It was only a few days later he came to her again.

In the middle of painting walls in what happened to no longer be her spare bedroom, panic widened her eyes when a knock resounded. The door was locked, and chained, because her roommate had a key and she hadn't been planning on letting her interrupt. But the blonde claimed she wouldn't return for hours, so Mary was kind of flustered as she dropped her roller into a tray at her feet and snatched up a nearby rag on her way. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on one's outlook, it wasn't Emma.

As soon as she opened the door, positioning herself as a barricade to prevent the other woman from barging in, and their eyes connected, her happy flush paled, breath escaped her in a rush, jarred from her untroubled mood.

On that same whoosh of breath, she exclaimed, "David."

"Mary," he answered accordingly.

Finding him on her threshold was no surprise. Surprisingly. And as the relief of not being busted by Emma mingled with the flare of aching at the sight of him, all she was left with was irony. The bittersweet aftertaste of it too. "What are you doing here?"

He wouldn't answer. Had no need. While her gaze flickered over his disheveled form, darting from startling cerulean eyes to parted mouth to rigid shoulder to bristled jaw to hands that furled against the ridges of her doorframe, clutching like an anchor to keep himself precariously in place. Just so, a raw moment of clarity, of pained understanding passed between the pair, filled so loud with all the words gone unsaid. In the same vein of overpressured opposition, a jagged intake of air before a scream, or the lulled beat before collecting steam blows, calloused fingers slipped free of angled wood, anchor cast aside.

Palm smacked against the door, knocking it from her grasp, as he closed the distance, swept her up into his embrace. A stolen collision of yearnings, of fleetingly lost willpower, of a passionate kiss, a hungry kiss, a devouring kiss of shared agony. Hold on her curved over the nape her neck, fisting in ebony locks there, while his other arm snaked the bow of her back, making her arch deeper into his enveloping length.

Each were pulling and pulling at one another, neither able to properly satisfy the urge of _closer_, _closer_, _closer_, a myriad of sensation and desire and agitation, locked in the grips of it like a vicious undertow.

Finally, stirred from senselessness by a distant chime of the Storybrooke clock tower, Mary Margaret broke away with a gasp of strangled protest, shoving him back from her. Emerald eyes screwed shut, porcelain features drawn, she rasped, "_Don't_!" Head shaking in denial, half croaked plea, half biting accusation, she persisted, "Don't do this to me."

"God, you're right," was his brusque reply, voice husky, roughened with emotion. "Mary, I am so sorry." Hands fell gently to her trembling shoulders, keeping her from the backpedalling escape she was trying for, and reeled her back into him, bodies just shy of pressed together again, urging her to meet his beseeching blue gaze. "I definitely should not have done that."

"You think?" she snapped, batting his grasp away as a sudden flare of fire overtook her and made bricking a wall of protection between them almost easy. "I can't believe you."

Chin dipping towards his chest, he raked at his sandy hair, expression frazzled. "I can't believe myself either."

"What were you thinking?"

"Not _that_." The earnest slant to his bothered tone soothed her. "Honestly, Mary, I only meant to say hello. I just . . . wanted to fix things. Not make it worse."

With a defeated sigh, no malice at all, she told him, "There is no fixing this."

Biting punishingly at the inside of his lip, he frowned. "I can't accept that."

"You don't have any other option, David." Bending to snatch up her dropped rag before spinning and striding off, she started scrubbing furiously at all her painted spots, keeping her tingling hands busy. The door shut and his unsure footfalls followed after. Voice uncharacteristically icy, still turned, she vented, "You made your choice. Stick to it. If not for yourself or your wife than for me. Do you have any idea how hard this is?"

"Pretty good one," he returned, a low and slow and self-deprecating drawl of words, making her rotate towards him despite herself, rag still pressed to the curve of her jaw, where a dried splotch of carnelian refused to come off. Rather than continue in circles, causing only more pained vexation, he seized the presented gateway of her softened face, casting an inquisitive glance towards the open doorway of the bedroom. "Project?"

Distracted, dazed even, Mary drew in a fresh breath, folding her arms across her chest. "Supposed to be a present for Emma," she admitted, her voice dulcet with vulnerability. "She's been sending disdainful looks at the original crème of her walls, and she mentioned in passing her favorite color is red, so I just thought . . . it would be nice." Feeling odd for some inexplicable reason, embarrassed perhaps, with his piercing stare stripping her bare, she shrugged her shoulders in a motion intended to be dismissive and came off helpless. "Make her feel more at home. I get the feeling she has never had a real one of those."

For David, it wasn't embarrassment her words unfurled inside of him like a blooming snarl of distress, but a disquieted sense of grief, of longing like he longed for this woman.

Taking his hands from his pockets, impulse had him nearing again, his advance fueled by a lulling sort of patience as to not spook her into evasion. Both careful and calm, he let himself reach up, slip the rag from her grasp, cradle her heart-shaped face between palms as she looked up at him with wide wary emerald eyes gone shiny, red lips unknowingly pouted and parted, cheeks rosy, before he released the breath of tension he'd held.

Dark lashes shuttered, she watched his microexpressions waver beneath his mask, movements languid but adroit as he cleared the paint stains. _In too deep_, a defensive voice whispered warningly through her clouded mind, and Mary swallowed thickly in response. "I should get back to work."

Finished, but not yet letting his touch drop away, David nodded. "You should."

"And you should leave."

Again, he nodded obligingly. "I should."

Wrapping delicate fingers around his wrists, feeling his pulse race against her skin, she forced his cradle broken, said waveringly, "No more showing up at my door like this."

"Okay."

"I mean it."

Brow furrowed in reluctance, he repeated, "Okay."

"You have to go now," she insisted, even as she began walking him to the door, moving forward to his backward, demanding palm to his chest before she used shoulders to swivel him around and urge him across the threshold, letting go only to white-knuckle her doorknob. "Goodbye, David."

Before she could will herself to close it on him, however, he spun around to her again, propped himself on either doorjamb, leaning in with an abrupt surge of intensity. "Mary," he began wholeheartedly, "I _am_ truly sorry."

"I know you are."

"I wish things were different." Eyes falling shut for the barest of unguarded moments, he added in a rough undertone, "God, do I wish things were different."

"But they aren't."

He caught her within another breathtakingly pervasive stare. "Goodbye, Mary."

When the door closed between them, her trembling fingers slipping the security chain back into place, it was like an entire ocean came crashing down upon her, and it was all she could do to keep breathing. And it didn't matter one bit this kind of reaction wasn't anywhere near normal or warranted. Logic had been trying to determine how she felt, what she wanted, who she needed, ever since she saved that man, and it always failed.

Heaving a rueful sigh, Mary returned to work, picking her roller up to gloss another coating on before she started trimming. Once she was done, she stood back to get herself a good look while she still had daylight streaming in. Overall, she felt it was job well done. Though it would need a few hours to dry before she could move the furniture back inside. She had matched shades as closely as she could to Emma's favorite leather jacket, and was absolutely positive her roommate would love it, especially since she couldn't seem to bear all the "_ugh, pastels_" Mary filled her place with. Maybe she wouldn't technically _express_ it. But that didn't mean she wouldn't appreciate it more than a dozen thanks could convey.

Treasuring the warm tingle of simple fulfillment, she sealed the leftover paint cans up and stored them in the utility closet before gathering tray and brushes to wash out in the kitchen sink. On a whim, she popped in a holiday album and decided to occupy her time by baking seasonal sweets until the bedroom was ready.

With cocoa, coconut flakes, raisins, walnuts, and all the basic ingredients splayed out across the island countertop, she was just pulling her fourth batch of Frosty Crinkles from the oven when the whipped open, hitting the length of the chain, and an affronted yelp resonated through the apartment.

"Mary, what the hell?" her roommate exclaimed, her smoky voice doing that familiar ringing of bewildered irritation slash amusement thing it so often did, making her grin.

Hands covered in confectioner's sugar, she dropped the cookie sheet onto the island, tossed her mitts aside, and scurried for the door. "Hang on. I'm coming."

"What's with the extra security?" Emma wondered, stalking inside as soon as she had it undone, flipping golden curls over her shoulder, only to come to a dead stop as she got a good look at the place. Thumbs hooked in her back pockets, she quipped, "Uh, I missed something important? Like pissing you off? Why is all my stuff piled in the living room?"

"Yes," she deadpanned, "I'm kicking you to the curb two days before Christmas."

"Wouldn't entirely surprise me," her roommate drawled, a wry undertone not meant to reveal anything more than wit behind the statement.

Heedless of messy hands, Mary took the blonde by the shoulders and steered her into her emptied bedroom, imprinting palms of powder on her aviator's jacket. "You know, you really should dress more warmly. Snow is a time for thermal wear. If the problem is resources or the like, I could always loan you some of my winter—"

"Seriously?" was what she got in response, not offended by being ignored, as Emma slipped from her grasp to venture into the center of the room and swivel on her heels. "Look what you did."

Fixed in the doorway, arms crossed, Mary couldn't help but beam at the product of her initiative. The unique mixture of disbelief, incredulous wonder, and prickled defense pleased her immensely. "You like it?"

"Hell, yeah." Then soberly, she shifted her attention onto the expectant schoolteacher and had to shake her head, still not quite sure how to respond. "Why would you do this?"

Shoulders lifted, she offered an encouraging smile, countered, "Why wouldn't I?"

Though she had never seen Emma cry before, it wasn't very difficult to decipher that awkward purse of her glossy mouth, or gruff clearing of her throat as she glanced away, and Mary was startled to realize she was indeed on the verge before she brushed past her into the living room, saying dismissively, "Well, I guess I better help you put all this crap back where it belongs, eh?"

Curiously moved, she followed after the uncomfortable blonde, dusting her hands off on her apron before helping her lift a wrought-iron sleigh bed frame. "I'd planned to have everything put together before you got home. But with all the dampness outside, it was taking longer than I had bet to dry, and you came home early."

"Yeah," her roommate acknowledged, a flicker of gratitude in her smirk for letting her get away with evading. "That's okay."

"I am a little worried about the paint fumes, though, since we can't exactly air it out with open windows right now. Maybe you should sleep on the sofa tonight. I can get the fireplace going for you. It will be safer that way. We wouldn't want to be killing off your brain cells."

"Good idea," Emma drawled, her signature sarcasm slanting her humorous expression. "Can't afford to lose any more of those babies."

Once they were finished, had all of her stuff returned to her bedroom, both wandered out into the kitchen just about the moment a timer went off.

Piqued by the spicy aroma in the air, Emma slid onto a barstool to watch her host deal with an array of baking projects in progress. After pushing another sheet of cookies into the oven, she spun with a spatula in hand to transfer previous batches from cooling racks into a festive tin, but not before setting a steaming mug of cocoa in front of Emma.

"What did I ever do to deserve you?" the blonde quipped, a bright smile teasing at the edges of her mouth as she stirred a twig of cinnamon through her hot chocolate.

With an unexplainable pang of hollowed aching awakened in her chest, Mary found herself frozen mid motion, eyes screwing shut to endure the short-lived spark.

"Hey," came Emma's worried voice, "You okay?"

Forcing a smile, over shaky, she shook off the strange spell and waved her spatula at the other woman, a wry chuckle dispelling her concern. "Wonderful. I am wonderful."

The very next day, after a restless night of crazy dreams, panting perspiring struggles, and vague but suffocating sensations, Mary Margaret awoke with a jolt, finding herself struck by _beyond_ wild notions. However temporary, she felt like a new woman, a new fire kindling inside of her since she was promised then denied something she hadn't even had the courage to believe she deserved but now feared she couldn't live without.

On one of those very rare occasions that she suffered a flare of her inner Snow White, it was not to be denied or overruled as usual. Unrealized of cause yet of no less affect.

_I want to fight for him_, she thought, unsettled by her own adamancy, her fiery resolve. This wasn't like her at all. What was she thinking? It wasn't her place to pursue David. She hadn't the right. He belonged to someone else. Had chosen someone else. _He was mine first_. But he wasn't. That was a lie. _I can't just give him up._

"Great," she muttered, slim shoulders weighed down even as her back got up with ire, "You have officially lost your mind, Margaret."

No matter her battling instincts, such a blazing fire wouldn't be banked unless it was given something to quell the ferocity of resistance.

That was what led her to his doorstep late in the morning. Kathryn had left for work already. But even if she hadn't, as possessed as she was, Mary couldn't be sure she could have stopped herself. That should have scared her. Instead, it made her feel empowered. Tossing aside her principles, her shame and her aversion to becoming a homewrecker, breaking up a marriage, hurting another woman, she furled a hand into fist and banged it against a mocking blue door in demand, shifting heel to heel as she waited anxiously.

After a few killer moments, David answered, still in the soft cotton of his pajama pants with bedhead, crystalline eyes squinted against the glare of bright sunlight. "Mary?"

Before he could register the shock of her presence here, she burst into step, flung arms around his neck, arched taut on her toes so she could catch him off guard with a brief but resoundingly keen kiss quick enough to make his heart stutter.

When it ended, dilated eyes fluttering open, she met his dazed gaze through a her veil of hooded lashes, their cool winter breaths mingling. And as her arms slipped down from his shoulders, lowering ever so slowly back onto her soles, all he could do was acquiesce, standing frozen beneath her aura. Of all things, she gave him a small smile of satisfaction, head canted cutely, emerald eyes glinting in sunshine, snowflakes dusting over hatless ebony locks, and his insides melted.

Just before she flitted from his personal space, she brushed her lips faintly once more across his slackened mouth, murmuring breathily, "Call it payback."

Then she walked away, hands buried in her pockets, scarf tied snug around her neck, skin white as the snow which layered the streets, cheeks and nose flushed red with chill, leaving him there in the open doorway, stuck in the warming grips of dumbfounded awe.

Although remorse would surely creep into her good mood for the rest of the long day, Mary wouldn't let it sober her just yet. She wanted desperately to enjoy this.

For just a fleeting moment, she allowed herself to believe she could actually have it all.

While such fanciful notions faded back into characteristically self-punishing timidity, her actions had instigated a new turn of thought, of desire, of reckless abandon which would not be reversed so easily.

For an example, Christmas Eve. The night was spent huddled inside by the fireplace for warmth, just her and Emma, exchanging a few gifts, watching old black and white movies by the light of the holiday tree sparkling in the corner. But right around midnight, after the blonde had fallen asleep in the midst of _The Bishop's Wife_, a soft knock came from her bedroom, just twice, leaving her to wonder if she'd imagined it.

More intrigued than frightened, since this was Storybrooke, after all, Mary gently slid herself out from under Emma, who had slanted onto her in her sleep, and padded quietly after the noise. Brushing her drapes aside, she peered cautiously out into the white snow, finding no one around. She would shrugged it off, gone back to the movie without more, except for the silvery wisp of tinsel that caught in the windy night breeze. Lifting up her window pane, she pulled tightly at her fuzzy robe and climbed out onto the fire escape to find a box wrapped in green and silver paper set on a step, concealed by a light dusting of fallen snow. Scooping it up, her fingers already numbing from the cold, she hurried back, casting searching glances around the darkened streets.

Sinking into a seat at the foot of her bed, she set the box in her lap and disentwined a small note from the ribbon and tinsel. There was no signature. One wasn't necessary.

_This reminded me of you_, it read in curt scrawl. _Don't ask me why_.

"Oh, boy." The murmur slipped from her lips before she could bite her tongue on it. She knew that stupid kiss would come back to haunt her. The stunt had undermined all of her hard work, all the steel she had managed to instill, however unlikely, setting them back to square one. And whatever was tucked inside this box was something she would do well to never see. Of that fact, she was certain. Yet her long nimble fingers were busy unfolding the intricate casing even as she thought as much, and by the time she could even _hope_ to convince herself otherwise, it was unwrapped and the lid was falling to the carpet at her feet, revealing something that made her freeze, breath hitched. "_Oh_, boy."

Coiled in a nest of emerald tissue paper was some sort of canopy device constructed of glass unicorns, crystal and ruby and sapphire interspersed evenly, dangling at varied tiers. It wasn't until she had clasped gentle fingers on the spiraled tip and lifted the artwork up, careful to not let the statuettes clink together, raised it high above her, gazing in wonder as rays from the Christmas tree in the other room bounced off crystal in beautiful prisms, she realized just what the devise was.

"A mobile," she whispered to herself with dawning comprehension, "A child's mobile."

Struck by some indiscernible emotion, Mary rose to her feet, forgetting the box as it fell to the floor, and moved for a corner burrow. She had no children, no crib to speak of, but she would hang the mesmerizing crystal regardless. Possessed, she sat at the edge of her bed for the rest of the night, hands folded in her lap, head tilted, staring dreamily at the glint of swaying mobile, completely bewitched with no idea why. So lost in her mind, she never remembered to return to Emma.

From then, every time her eyes caught on the crystal, a surge of love and loss hit her, and she couldn't shake the thought that she was missing something pivotal.

As night fell on Christmas Day, all of the townsfolk of Storybrooke found themselves gathered in the center quad, attending a recital for the children. Candles flickered alight one by one in a sea of the crowd. Rope lights strung to the gazebo which stood as stage twinkled warmly, a halo around huddled young ones. Snowfall had lessened hours before, leaving just an occasional flurry, spiraling down to the ground. It was peaceful, serene, sweet even, a good tradition. But it wasn't exactly a stimulating celebration. That was saved for the waiting festivities. So, with an ending note of _Silent Night_, all the crowd scattered away, parents corralling their children, and almost everyone migrated indoors, over to City Hall, where the annual holiday party was only just beginning.

Though she hadn't wanted to attend, Mary Margaret mingled amongst her neighbors, letting the current carry her along. Well, it was actually Emma's insistent grip on her arm more than the crowd that kept her from slipping away unnoticed. The blonde had gotten even bossier than usual lately. And the schoolteacher had learned it was useless to resist. Which was why it was half past midnight, _way_ past her bedtime, and yet she found herself standing beside a ridiculously decorated Ficus, held captive by a tipsy Miss Monroe from Baker's Street, with no hope of escape as the spinster prattled on about the nasty vagrants vandalizing her precious tomato garden.

A serious crime, no doubt.

"There you are!" came a familiar cadence, right before Emma appeared at her elbow, making Mary perk with relief. "I was wondering where you were hiding." To the spinster, with a disinterested glance, she said, "Mind if I steal her away?" But she didn't bother to wait for a response, just steered the schoolteacher away, pushing her closer to the core. "No more playing wallflower."

"I like being a wallflower. You know I don't want to be here."

"That's only 'cause you refuse to partake in the atmosphere," Emma countered easily. "If _I_ can get into this whole Norman Rockwell vibe of a shindig than so can you."

"But—"

"Nope," was how she got cut off. "Don't wanna hear it." As they drifted to a standstill at the edge of a dance floor, she angled towards the blonde at her side, had to laugh when she upended her glass of eggnog only to spit it back into her glass, grimacing in distaste. "_Ugh_, gross."

"If you don't like eggnog, why did you pick it up?" she asked, pressing her fingertips to her lips to stifle her laughter, and biting her tongue on how cute she thought it was when Emma did that funny wrinkling thing to her nose. The sight reminded her of something. Though she couldn't say what, she knew it was something warm and fond and full of love.

The blonde dropped her glass on a passing waiter's tray as she retorted, "I _like_ eggnog. I just don't like whatever _that_ was."

"Have you seen Henry anywhere around?"

"No, but he should be in bed."

"Yes," she answered, her teasing smile belying her solemn tone, "I would say he most definitely should be in bed by now."

Catching the undercurrent, Emma shifted to face her, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "What do you know that I don't?"

"I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about," she innocently quipped, even as she used a grasp on the blonde's shoulder to swivel her in the right direction, pointing a delicate finger towards an open archway across the modern ballroom of an event hall, where the little boy could just barely be seen peeking from around the corner.

When he saw he had their attention, a dopey grin flashed at his mouth and he waved, urging for his mother. With a pair of batman pajamas visible beneath his bulky ski coat and fur boots, cap on his head hiding messy hair, it was obvious he'd snuck from his bed on the sly.

Rolling her eyes, a fondly exasperated sigh on her lips, Emma zipped up her jacket. "See you later then."

Mary started after her. "If you're leaving—"

"Don't even think about it," the other woman interrupted, spinning to stalk backward, sending the schoolteacher a commanding look. "Stay put. Have some _fun_. You remember what that is, right?"

Arms folded across her midsection, she watched her companion duck outside after the excited little boy, wishing she could go with them, catching her lower lip between teeth as an oddly hollow pang hit her chest. This was quickly becoming a habit. Feelings all sorts of upsetting things without understanding where they were coming from.

"Why the lonely look?" a familiar voice drawled from behind her left shoulder.

Spinning slowly, she arched her brow, willing to forgive herself if her expression could be construed as less than friendly. "Excuse me?"

Dr. Whale graced her with his most endearing smirk, sidling closer so he could speak below the din of music and boisterous people. "In a place brimming with unreasonably happy people, you stick out like a neon sign."

"How is this?" she asked, biting out a broad smile.

Suitably playful, he winced. "Horrible."

"See why I don't do it?" Melting a bit from her initial instinct of chilly distance, she let a forced smile fade until the curve of her lips was merely the barest of upturns, not faked but not displeased either. "How have you been?"

"Good, good," he replied, perfunctorily, as his intent gaze skated past her shoulder. "Think you could muster up enough spirit for a dance?"

_Have some fun_, Emma's authoritative voice echoed in her mind, and Mary compressed her lips in exaggerated consideration. "I could probably be persuaded."

"Excellent."

Before she could rethink the idea, she was swept up into a sea of mismatched rhythm, cradled lightly in the charming doctor's embrace as he guided their motions. It was nice. Surprisingly. Though she had deftly avoided him since they ended up in bed together, hardly any of the awkwardness she had feared arced between the two now. If not for a decidedly intimate feel to his touch, it would almost be like that night never happened. Unfortunately, she couldn't quite pretend so, because the man now maneuvered her as if he had personal knowledge of her body, which he did. _Wow_. This was very strange to her, this situation, enough to make her wonder why. One would think she had never slept with a guy before unattached. And that couldn't be the case.

Could it?

_Of course not, Mary. Don't be silly. You've been with men before without being serious._ But as she searched her memory, she couldn't bring any to mind.

"The whole point of interacting with others in an environment like this is to get _out_ of your own head, Ms. Margaret." The teasing lilt to his voice startled her from her thoughts, and as she looked up into his sparkling but superficial stare, she felt her bewilderment slip away, completely forgotten.

With a dismissive purse of her lips, she chimed, "You are absolutely right."

Taking a step back, he used his hold on her hand to spin her out from his body before reeling her smoothly back in, drawing a surprised giggle from the troubled schoolteacher. The moment was lighthearted, simple, empty but pleasant. It would have been perfect.

But the telling itch between her shoulder blades, pooling liquid warmth in her belly, distracted Mary from the lure of such a moment. Hooded emerald eyes began scanning the darkened hall as she sunk into a lazy embrace, draping arms over Whale's shoulders, feet moving mindlessly to the tune. Despite not finding what she looked for, she had no uncertainty he was here. She could _feel_ David watching her, a palpable pressure across her skin as always, and trying to ignore the sensation was pointless.

"Lost you again," murmured the doctor, mouth ghosting over the shell of her ear.

Mary craned her neck to meet his gaze. "Not very good company tonight, am I?"

The look she got in return was full of wry humor. "Everyone is allowed an off day."

Laughing gently as he twirled her again, she finally let herself succumb to all of this merrily dancing cheer. And why shouldn't she? After all, she had more to be glad for this year than ever before as she could remember. Regardless of how messed up her love life was at the moment. Things weren't all bad.

Once the next song ended, already transitioning into another, she parted from Whale and weaved her way as inconspicuously as possible off the floor with every intention of reaching the closest exit. So _of course_ something had to intercede. Barely one heeled foot off the maple of the dance floor, head turned, she collided with a hard chest. Before she could stumble, a set of strong hands encircled her arms, righting her balance.

"Pardon me," she rasped, voice choked by the rippling arc of electric heat at contact, and was being walked backwards the way she came before she even looked up to be met with piercing blue eyes and tautened features.

Holding her securely positioned amongst the wave of surrounding people, David cast a bothered glance around before fixating down on her flustered face. "Hi."

"Hi," she echoed in an absent whisper, not even aware that she was dancing again, only acutely aware that his hands were on her flesh and they were in public and the sharp fluttering of her nerve endings was entirely inappropriate in such a venue.

When his grasp on her tightened, flexing unconsciously, she realized the look burning his bright eyes even brighter yet was restrained anger. Given realization, his next words shouldn't have startled her. "The rumors are true then?"

"What rumors?"

"About you and Dr. Whale." As that raised her brow, expression otherwise inscrutable, he added impatiently, "Miss Monroe is a terrible gossip. I couldn't avoid it."

"I'm so sure," she drawled, heart-shaped face flat with deadpan, and curled her fingers in the material of his flannel overshirt for a tether in their rotations.

David wasn't dissuaded. "Are you going to answer my question?"

"No."

"_No_ as in you won't? Or _no_ as in the rumors aren't true?"

"_No_ as in it's none of your business whether the rumors are true or not."

That made the muscle in his jaw tense. "So, it's none of my business tonight? Okay. What about the next time you show up on my porch and—"

"There won't _be_ a next time," she hurriedly interrupted, a whispered insistence which could have been as much for his benefit or for hers. "I told you. It was payback. That's all."

Leaning in so close his breath blew across her cheek, he lowered his voice, murmured, "Whatever you have to tell yourself."

Mary shivered against him, air stuck in her throat, lips helplessly parted, cheeks rosy. Though it was difficult to regulate her breath, her pulse, her speech, her countenance with his overbearing proximity, she was trying valiantly. "This is not the time or place to have this discussion."

"Oh?" he challenged softly, staring down at her as if those eyes of his could peel away every single layer of defense she wrapped herself within and there was nothing she could do to avoid it. "I thought there was nothing left to discuss?"

Blinking blankly, she retorted, "Right. There isn't."

"Obviously," was his dry disbelieving drawl.

All of a sudden, she suffered a strong impulse to smack him away, and merely the idea caused a warm ripple of laughter to escape her, eyes falling shut, face turning from him, fingers bunching at his shoulders in a faint clutch. As a surge of affectionate amusement overtook the woman, she felt the pull of it even stronger than the heated thrill of tension. And he only made her struggle harder when his hands slipped slowly across the bow of her spine to rest at the small of her back, arms bracketing her waist, and used it to force her body more solidly into his own, mesmerized by her unexpectedly uplifted wonder.

"Wanna get out of here?" he asked, unfazed as she stiffened warily, clarifying for her, "Just for a walk?" And when her arms slipped from his shoulders to her sides, he caught her hands in a loose clasp of his own, gently tugging her with him through the hall.

Because of the falsely intimate feel of the darkness around them, and flowing liquor, she wasn't really worried about someone noticing the pair departing together and getting the wrong idea. But she should have been.

Bursting outside into a windy chill before either even had their outerwear on properly, he pulled her down a snowy street and around a corner, kept going until rowdy sounds of a Christmas party faded into the welcoming hush of night.

Though there was no longer any need, he still had hold of her hand, fingers twined, palms rubbing together, keeping her close at his side. Instinct made her other arm wind around his that had her captured, furling inward on him against the biting cold, not quite willing to listen to that cautionary voice in her head anymore. Not now. Not with David so close, his presence filling up her senses, making her dizzy every time she attempted to use her brain in spite of it.

As the forbidden charge of being near faded into rich comfort, edged by resignation, Mary summoned her purpose. Softly, she said, "We can't keep doing this. It has to stop."

"I agree," he replied, easing to a halt on the sidewalk before a white picket fence where an apple tree hung above, each angling to face one another. Both gazes lowered in unison, fixing on where their hands joined between them, her skin smooth and chill to the touch as his grasp roved, memorizing shapes and tracing creases, sparking a sensual sensation. Their words rang deafeningly in the quiet, a heavy weight, until they separated from that last strung connection, fingers grazing to the tips as they pulled apart. Hollowly, he said, "I agree."

"Good." She nodded jerkily, sucked in a gasp of icy air, and shuddered. "That's good."

"Is it?"

"Yes. Of course."

"If you say so," he muttered, voice low and grim, but didn't press the matter further.

Features wavering ever so briefly, she insisted, "I do."

Hands got relegated to coat pockets, idle walking resumed, and Mary fought to ignore a deep-seated yearning she saw in his furtive glances, his lingering stares, bright blue eyes shining with it so heart-rending. The same look he'd _always_ given her. One she likely was carrying herself as well. It just wasn't fair. To feel this way after all these years spent alone. Yet not be able to feel it freely.

"So," he began a few moments later on a fresh breath, "I can't wrap my head around it. You really aren't going to tell me?"

"About?" she queried, despite being pretty sure what he was referring.

David tried and failed to hide his grimace of aversion. "Dr. Whale. You can't be serious about that guy. You just can't."

Archly, she demanded, "Why not?"

"He's not right for you."

"You don't even know him."

"I know he's a tool," he countered evenly, brow rising high, only to falter as she threw her head back with a low laugh, relief flooding him. "I'll take that for tacit concession."

Stopping again, she brushed a quick touch to his covered arm, stilling him, and said, "Do no such thing. He is not so bad."

"Not _all_ bad." Slanting forward brought him in close for a beat. "There is a difference."

Falling silent, she studied his features, mind wandering off. Ever since that harsh night with the doctor, after David's expected rejection, she had felt incredibly guilty. She felt as if she had betrayed him. As if she cheated, and that made no sense. Her emotions were all out of whack. Completely confused. Logically, she should be able to see who she wanted, be with whoever she chose, without feeling queasy, without feeling dirty. Though she well rationally understood this, believed this, it had no affect on her heart or her instincts. That night of drunken solace, of indiscretion, had left her feeling lower than she had ever felt before. Also, not a big boost to her self-esteem.

But the way _David_ looked at her, blue eyes gleaming as if she were the whole universe every single time she caught in his line of vision . . . now _that_ was a spike to the blood.

Not that it was precisely Whale's fault. No, it was all her own. She could blame herself for this wreckage. Or she could blame David as the source of it. Except she wasn't really into blaming. Just didn't suit her temperament.

"I'm not," she acquiesced at last, making him shift beside her, gaze finding her own. "Serious about him, I mean. Whatever rumors you've heard, you have been misinformed."

"But you _were_ with him. Weren't you?" Persisting because of a morbid need to know, his inner masochistic tendencies obviously having surfaced, he couldn't shut his mouth. "People saw you leaving his place first thing in the morning a few weeks ago. They say you were wearing the same clothes from the day before. Called it a walk of shame. Was it?"

Agitated, blushing fiercely, she turned her chin towards her other shoulder. "David—"

"That was the day after . . . after I disappointed you." Here his tone hardened. "Was it because of me? Mary, did I push you to that guy?"

"What is the real issue here?" she questioned instead, chin tilting back up and stance going rigid as she shook off her humiliation, making him falter. "Tell me."

"Weakness," he confessed, after a charged heartbeat, "I am a weak man."

And that was the crux of it, what bothered him so, more so than almost anything else. He was severely torn, and would continue to be for the foreseeable future, because he was trying to do the right thing by not abandoning Kathryn, yet he couldn't for all his worth bear to stay away from Mary Margaret. He wasn't a noble man. He was weak. No way could he endure this imposed distance from the one woman he knew absolutely he loved. But he didn't want to be weak. Wasn't sure how to live with himself if he didn't try.

Somehow, during their wordless symbiotic exchange, he had gravitated into her space, something he tended to do quite often, his very cells driving him to her. Realizing lapse, he throttled his restraint back into place and stepped away. "We should . . ."

". . . stay away."

"Right," he said, unintentionally mimicking her defensive reflex for hollow accord.

Mary read his thoughts, and reluctantly obliged, "Just until . . ."

". . . it's not so hard."

"Exactly," she said, a little too sharply, with a curt nod of her head. "It's settled then."

David held back a wince, knowing he would never be able to keep apart long enough for her magnetic draw to die, repetitive cycle of their denial aside. "Yes, it is."

Already propelling leaden feet down the street, she bid, "Goodnight, David."

Risking surrender so soon, he had to offer, "Do you want me to walk you home?"

Pausing just briefly, Mary glanced over her shoulder, let their eyes lock. Inner struggle soothed by a sweet humor, she lilted, "I'll find my way."

All the way down the block, she felt the welcoming pressure of his gaze fixed on her. But she didn't look back. Couldn't let herself. Just kept striding on ahead, until she was locked safely inside her home, and the urge to turn herself around became nothing but thoughtless exhaustion, easily put aside for another day.

Peace would be short-lived, however.

In the morning, returning from the bakery, she was accosted by a seething villainess. Hands taken up with a cheery pink box of pastries, which she hoped to have home before Emma woke, she hadn't the availability to defend herself when someone grabbed her by an upper arm and swung her off the sidewalk, manhandling Mary into a private alcove. With a gasp, she found herself eye to eye with the ice queen, Regina Mills.

Acrylic nails bit harshly into her arm, softened by the thick layers of coat and sweater, yet still she managed to keep her tone somewhat polite as she greeted, "Madame Mayor."

"Ms. Blanchard." Spat out between blindingly white gritted teeth, it was more a curse than the ring of a name. "Have yourself a good holiday?" she inquired, her icy demeanor not even _thinly_ veiled today. "I do hope you enjoyed yourself at my party."

Falteringly, she replied, "It was . . . nice."

"I'm sure it was. _For you_."

Emerald eyes slid up from the grip on her arm. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Regina unlatched her claws to fold her arms over her chest, grey pantsuit snug under her white pea coat, and proceeded to bite out a sinister smile for the timid schoolteacher. "My friend Kathryn went home early with a headache. Her husband couldn't be bothered to accompany her. I wonder why."

It came as no real shock Mayor Mills knew of her current predicament with David. The two hadn't exactly been discreet in this little tug of war of theirs.

Flustered, Mary shifted her weight, craving space desperately. "If you're implying—"

"Spare me the innocent act," her mayor sneered, "I see now you aren't as wholesome as you like to pretend. And you must be very determined to cause trouble around here, because I would have sworn we addressed this dilemma weeks ago, yet here you go again, involving yourself where you don't belong."

"I don't see what this has to do with you," she cut in, spine stiffening at the palpable undercurrent of threat encircling her like those acrylic-tipped hands on her tender throat.

The other woman only simpered in response to her backbone. "Of course you don't. Why would you understand my stake? You have never had a real friend, Mary Margaret."

Smarting at the profound barb, delivered so coldly, so cruelly, trying not to show it, she had to grind her teeth, inhale through her nose for composure, fingers wanting to furl and crush the bakery box she cradled. Dulcet voice edged, stony, she lied, "I haven't done anything wrong. You asked me to not encourage his delusions. You asked me to let him return to his wife and I've done so. The rest is none of your concern."

"I beg to differ," Regina argued, sidestepping into her path when Mary tried to escape. "He wouldn't be acting possessive of you unless you were encouraging him."

One thing she could not stand was being loomed over. It made her want to _cower_ and _that_ went against her every repressed instinct. "Even so, I'm done with this conversation."

Catching her by the arm again as she shouldered by, Mayor Mills leaned into her ear, sides pressed, and menaced, "Stay away from him, Ms. Blanchard. Or I will make your life in my town a living hell."

Eyes flashing with a familiar banked fire, Mary ripped herself from the other's grasp and rounded her slowly, never once breaking the searing link of their gazes, of their wills. "Tell you what," she countered, forcibly light, "I will take it under advisement."

Before the vile woman could reengage, she was stalking away, flushed and furious, alight with a burning blaze of inexplicable strength. As oddly comforting as she found it, though, her mood had dwindled into something sullen and subdued by the time her walk reached home. Summoning up some superficial cheer, she ventured inside with her box of warm consolation, finding the welcome sight of Emma in the kitchen, all bleary eyes, messy blonde curls, and baggy pajamas, headed for the brewing coffeepot.

Just like that her day was back to decent.

Weeks later, she was still stewing over her unpleasant encounter with the mayor when she was swept off her feet, whirled from the sidewalk, yanked into an alleyway behind her apartment building. Husky laughter reverberated from the chest at her back, sent shocks down her spine, as she was hijacked from her route inside. Lifted off the ground, she had no leverage to struggle, and a hand clasped her mouth to smother her startled shriek.

Bristled jaw chafing the curve of her neck, he chided playfully, "This is why you should always carry something to defend yourself."

At the caress of his deep familiar cadence, a thrilled shiver slivered through her almost intensely enough to drown out the flare of irritation. Biting at the fingers on her mouth, she jammed her elbow into his solar plexus and arched her weight forward against him, stomping a heel into his toes, only satisfied once she'd heard his grunt of surprised pain.

Strong arms still encircled her as they stumbled backward together, losing balance, and thudded heavily into the brick wall, knocking the air from both their lungs.

Back on her feet, Mary twisted in his hold, bringing them chest to chest in time to see a grimaced sort of grin, part discomfort, part mirth, before David darted down to capture her lips in a crushing kiss.

Palm to his racing heart, she shoved him back, both panting for breath, and quipped, "That's how I defend myself."

"Yeah, I see." His tone is ragged. "You really hurt me."

Brow arched, she explained, "I used a little more force than necessary. Just for you."

"Sure know how to make a guy feel special," he drawled, rubbing exaggeratedly at his bruised flank.

Carefully untangling their legs, she tried to separate herself from him, saying lightly, "Emma has been teaching me self-defense. Figured I should try it out at least once."

He made a face. "So glad I could be your guinea pig."

"What else are you good for?" she volleyed, natural wit breaking free as it tended to do around this one man in particular.

Sobering suddenly, momentarily, he reached out and cinched her wrist in his grasp, still slouched haphazardly against the brick, and used it to reel her back towards him just as she'd started to put distance between them. The serious look in his bright eyes told her how much he wasn't in the mood to pretend.

Voice significantly weaker, she protested, "David."

"Mary," he mimicked, relentless in his goal of getting her back in his arms. Once it was properly achieved, and he had her pressed firmly to him, arms locked around her waist, he bent his head again, stealing another quick kiss. In broad daylight. He didn't care.

But she did. Turning her face from his, she whined, "No. _David_. No."

Heedless of her wriggling resistance, which was admittedly faint, he leaned in for her, over and over, kissing at any reachable inch when she wouldn't give him her lips again. While she kept in constant motion to avoid his teasing ministrations, his kisses only increased in determination, mouth eagerly mapping the curvatures of her face, until their battle of wills dissolved into laughing twists and tangles.

It wasn't the exact moment he felt her give in, but pretty soon afterwards that their playful embrace deepened, becoming urgent and fevered.

He had walked her across the alley, hands bracketing her hips, actually got her back against the rail of the rear stairway into her building before her second round of protest flared up, drawing a guttural groan from his throat, breaking them apart.

Fingertips to swollen lips, eyes hooded with desire, she breathed out, "This has gotten out of hand." But when she tried to escape him completely, he resisted. Tightened his grip on her hips. Swung her closer. Attempted to drown her doubts with another heady kiss. "David, please stop. This is crossing a new line and I'm not . . ."

Drawing back, he gazed down into her dark eyes, struggling to think halfway straight as the smell and feel and taste of her overwhelmed his senses. "You're not what?"

"You're going to regret this." As she said so, her voice wavered, striking him in the gut with something excruciating. "We're both going to regret this one day."

"No," he promised, stroking calloused worshipful fingers through her soft ebony locks. "All day, every day, all night long, all I think of is you." Stilling her next protest, her head shaking in denial, with a gentle touch to her mouth, he finished, "Just you."

Mary hesitated for one fleeting moment before she melted into him, body and soul. They fumbled blindly together up the rickety wooden steps to the backdoor, her fingers clumsy with her keys, his hands impatient as they roved, hearts pounding breathtakingly, a contented smile shared.

It was so wrong it couldn't possibly get any wronger. Yet she was the happiest she ever remembered being in that stolen moment.

Barely through the door, mouths melded, he kicked it shut, fingers stringing down the center line of her, unbuttoning her silk blouse, sliding it over her shoulders, letting it pool in a lavender puddle at their feet, even as she toed out of her heels. The bra beneath was a similar shade of lavender, lace instead of silk, and exposed a good deal of milky curves for his eyes to feast on. But he managed nothing more than an admiring glimpse before being distracted by her tongue tracing the bow of his inner lip. Hands buried in her short hair, he dragged her roughly up against him, another groan drawn out, and enjoyed the way she arched. Immensely.

_My wife. My love. My life._ Words which succinctly encompassed what he felt for this incredible woman. Only that wasn't right. He already had a wife. Mary Margaret wasn't it. And, damn, did that feel all kinds of unnatural. Almost just as unsettling as the thought of another man having touched her, a thought which had consumed him for weeks now.

He had to have her. _Now_.

A low-cut camisole prevented him from going straight for the hook of bra. The buffer also helped him take a beat to restore his patience. He wanted this to last.

Dropping to his knees before her, David curved his splayed hands over the hourglass of her torso, lowering to tease the hem of her camisole, lifting it inch by inch to explore an expanse of smooth lower stomach with lips and teeth and tongue, dipping lower only to head higher when a delicious whimper of anticipation resounded in his ears.

When he reached the flare of one hip, nipped sharply, it earned him another wriggle, and a strangled squeal of delight/protest. Blue eyes skating up her length, he grinned. "Guess you're ticklish." But he knew that already. Could picture how her emerald eyes would glisten as he mercilessly attacked her flanks, pinning her beneath his broader form, making her scream in pleased outrage. And how warm, how electrified, how tantalizing she would get when he finally showed mercy. The knowledge was bone-deep instinct.

Smiling faintly, blushing fiercely, she looked down at him looking up and gave a slow shake of her head, worried at the impish glint in his gaze. "No. _David_. No."

Obedient, he slid his grasp even lower, playing with the loose clasp of her broom skirt. Before it could come undone, however, delicate fingers closed around his wrists. When he glanced up in question, she caught her lip between her teeth, gnawed at it in debate.

"Having second thoughts?"

"If I were, it wouldn't be second."

Mouth quirked crookedly, he supplied, "Thirteenth?"

As she pulled his hands from her body, spread them wide to the side, she fell gently to her knees in front of him, bringing them level, incidentally or not so incidentally taking temptation away from him. Their fingers twined for a moment like writhing snakes before he began gliding his along the outstretched shape of her arms until he reached her collar. Cradling her heart-shaped face in his palms, he locked her in his gaze.

"No regrets?" She wanted his promise.

So he gave it to her. He would give her anything he could. "No regrets."

Lashes like the flutter of butterfly wings, her eyes drifted closed, and he couldn't help but lean forward those last few centimeters, resting his forehead against hers, an exhale of both brilliant relief and sheer excitement. A strangely quelling moment passed between them then, knelt there on the floor of her living room, golden daylight streaming inside through floral drapes.

"This isn't right," she murmured, breathy and delirious, whispering across his flesh. "This is bad. Bad Idea. Bad things. Bad outcome."

The ring of truth in her rushed words hit him hard. "It doesn't have to be."

Swaying slightly, she clutched to his shoulders. "You and I both know how things like this turn out in real life."

Desperate, he joked, "Who says this is real life? Could be a fairytale."

Eyes flashing open, she pinned him with a defensive look. "Get serious."

"I am serious. I'm perfectly serious." Attention straying towards her mouth, her chest, her sensitive throat, he uttered solemnly, "My true love." The pad of one thumb stroked her pouted lower lip. A little less serious, "All I need now is a kiss."

"There is only one problem with this theory of yours."

"Oh?" he indulged, hands wandering over the set of her trembling shoulders, farther, along the arc of her ribcage, hoisting her above him enough to trail light caresses down her stomach, bypassing the rolled fabric of her camisole. "What's that?"

Back on her feet, bowing backwards over a bar of his arm as he worked her over again, she managed to rasp out, "True love's kiss didn't pull you from your coma."

Pausing at her words, he ran his hands down her sides, undid the clasp of her skirt, wetting his lips. "That's right. It wasn't a kiss." As the skirt hit the floor, he let his urge to explore take over, skimming touches both feathery and gripping on the shape of her legs, watched the way her porcelain features reacted. "It was your voice."

"_David_," she pleaded, not quite sure what she was begging for by now, but jolted when his hand curved the inside of her thigh, rising into dangerous territory.

Undeterred, hands still testing and teasing her mostly bared body, he told her richly, "That beautiful wonderful voice of yours. It pulled me from the darkness." At her sounds of support, he hooked his fingers in the band of her panties, started drawing them off her. In response, she furled a grasp in his sandy hair, arched into his languid movements. Mouth ghosting across the joint of her hip, he drawled, "Brought me back to life."

Mary stilled within his grasp. Looking down, vulnerable, on the verge of hurt amidst her heavy-lidded haze of lust, she asked, "Is that why—"

"No," he interjected, wanting to dismiss the silly notion before it could haunt her. Disregarding his previous intentions, he took hold of her hips, tugged her down to him, and locked an immovable arm around her. Brushing a fringe of ebony locks from her eyes, he had to coax her into meeting his stare. Once she did, he promised, "That's not why."

A stifling intensity bloomed between them then, a hurricane of emotion, of sensation, breathtaking and unbearable, swallowing them whole. Swelling. Bursting.

In an abrupt release of pressure, Mary and David jolted into frenzied motion at once. Crossing whatever space still existed between them, they collided, clashing together in a seamless push and pull, a rough give and take. His caresses tingled at her nerve endings. Her jerks rid him of his shirt, his belt, his pants, before he lifted her up, let her legs circle his sternum, clinging to him when he shoved to his feet and stumbled into her bedroom.

From there it was a sharp, sweaty, messy, striving haze of overstimulation, hours of it, an experience made even more poignant by their heightened emotions.

After having depleted not only his stamina but her threshold for sensory assault, a lull of comedown peace enveloped them. Through the curtains, sunlight dwindled into dusk. Emma came home, banged around the kitchen a bit, slammed into the bathroom and out, before barging back out the front door again after dark. By the time she was finally gone, David had been contemplating risking a sighting for a glass of water the past half hour. But when he went to slip from bed, a sleeping Mary shifted, his arm stuck under her neck, and he watched her brow furrow fitfully, body naturally burrowing for his own. Given up on the idea of quenching his thirst, he settled back into the mattress, studying her serene unaware state for a quiet moment, a blissful moment, and then indulged in impulse and buried his nose in her neck, blade of it rubbing against the curve of her jaw, making her shift again with a soft moan of approval. Exhaustion claimed him soon enough.

The beat of broken hearts, indeed.

Midway through the evening, Mary stirred from the beginnings of a harsh nightmare. Jarred into awareness, she laid back with a gasp, clutched her racing heart, trying to sort herself into alignment. Sometime during the night, they had switched positions, her arm curled under his neck, her skin on fire where it melded to his. Because she couldn't seem to catch her breath, or because she couldn't believe the reality of having him beside her was actually _better_ than the promise of it, she rolled over, hiking a knee over his hip, sliding a thigh between his legs, and pressed her palms into the pillows.

"Margaret," was his incoherent mumble of a reaction, bogged down by sleep, but his body responded to her _just fine_.

Throbbing with need, aching with it, she rested on top of him, her breasts squashed to his chest, her hips revolving infinitesimally against his, her feverish core slicking along his arising erection, enticing him into the waking world.

Another of her needy mewls, an unguarded sound she would normally be ashamed of, was what finally urged him awake. In the silvery moonlight, his cerulean eyes glinted like a beacon of promise, invading her every thought, her every want. Even clouded with sleep as he was, he didn't hesitate to give her what she needed. Calloused hands smoothed over heated flesh, a prickling contrast, before fixing at her hips, raising her slightly, using one slow sure stroke to sheath himself deep inside of her, making her shudder in relief.

Frozen in place, she ducked her head, pressed her face into his throat, breath heavy. But once the initial ripple of adjustment faded, he swung upright from beneath her. Fingers dug into corded shoulders as they began to move together, building a rhythm, until she couldn't silence the mindless noises, animalistic almost, as surging sensations rode hard through them both.

Lip bitten by teeth, she let her head fall back, eyes fluttering. One strong hand grazed up the bowed expanse of her spine, curving at the nape of her neck. "_David_."

"Look at me."

As out of it as she was, she still managed to register the ragged request and comply. Eyes locked, he used his hold on her nape to tug her down, let their electric pace stutter, mouths meeting in a sweet and sloppy kiss. It was amazing how attuned they were now. These bodies weren't strangers. Not by a long shot. He knew how to strum her just right, make her vibrate, make her purr, leave her body glowing.

And glow she did. For the rest of the night all the way into dawn.

Lying lazily entwined in bed as sunrise seeped inside, Mary woke this time to the feel of her hand stretched from her body, curved over his side, cradled by both his own while he fiddled with her tingling fingers, toying sleepily with her emerald ring. The smile on her face died a gentle death. Instead of basking in her momentary joy, she found herself sinking into a familiar abyss.

She had this horrible ache of emptiness within her. She always had. But slowly, lately, it had been healing. The void had been filling out, full of David, full of Emma, full of hope.

Watching over his shoulder as he twirled her ring around, she let her thoughts stray, cast her gaze aside. Never once since she'd known him had he worn a wedding band. Though that soothed a possessive part of her, she knew it meant nothing. He had a wife. He wasn't hers. No matter how intensely it felt otherwise. Would he ever be?

_She isn't real. She isn't going to be able to love you like I will_, she sort of wanted to say, but she wouldn't, because the thought confused her, as many did these days.

There were other issues to consider, anyway. Not just his wife. _God, how awfully wrong that sounded._ But there was also the mayor. Mary Margaret had always been a little afraid of Regina Mills, but the interest she had taken in David, in his life and how it progressed, made the schoolteacher suspicious enough to want to be even more cautious than usual around the intimidating politician.

Yet the ominous threat of Madame Mayor, and the fear she invoked, only brought out a lash of protectiveness in Mary, kindled that fire that used to be so rare but was now so easily lured alive.

Sidling closer, a soft sigh of resignation escaping her, she molded herself to his back, winding her free arm above them to finger mussed sandy hair, chin propped on his neck. "You have got a real thing for jewels, haven't you?"

"Not especially," he replied, lost in a daze so deep he missed her teasing lilt, just kept rotating the ring around her finger, only stopping when sunbeams bounced off the gem. "Where did you get this?"

Automatically, she returned, "It's an heirloom."

"Oh."

Bending her arm, he brought her captured hand to his mouth, going past knuckles, and used a gentle graze of his teeth to work the gold band off her middle finger. He held it between two fingers for a moment, staring like it hid wonders, but then slid it onto her ring finger as if that was where it'd always belonged.

The sated woman felt a stab of something indescribably welcoming at the sight of it, like a glowing warmth, a weeping relief, before a pang of longing hit her hard.

_Exploding noema_, a fringe scientific term, and appropriate to what she experienced. The exact startling moment when the brain was incapable of reconciling the difference between what should be and what actually was. There would most likely be a lot of such in the days to come.

This was Mary Margaret and David Nolan. Together. For now.

This was Snow White beaten into submission, her fire banked but not extinguished, simmering in wait for the time to rise. This was Prince Charming who had lost his way, guided only by his heart, conflicted by circumstances of deceit.

These were mirror mirages.

* * *

><p><em>Finis<em>


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